Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1938. A BERCHTESGADEN FAIRY TALE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 August 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1938. A BERCHTESGADEN FAIRY TALE.

JN returning from a hurried and unexpected visit to Herr Hitler at Berchtesgaden aglow with stories of the Fuehrer’s horror at the idea of a European war and of the Germans’ strong will to peace, Sir lan Hamilton has given signal proof of the extent to which it is possible for a man of years and experience to be led away from the work! of realities into one of moonshine. It would be incredible (Sir lan is reported to have said) to imagine anything warlike being planned in Berchtesgaden, where Hitler has built a bird sanctuary containing 8,000 nests of nightingales and other nonpredatory birds. Germans were much more active towards peace than Britons and he (Sir lan) expressed the firm belief that Hitler would keep them out of - war. The answer to all this of course is that Hitler has done more than any other living man to drive his own nation and others into war. His whole career and position are based upon a vicious stirring up of race hatreds within and beyond the frontiers of Germany. But for its being presented against the background of a tragic and troubled world, the picture of this strife-monger as a keeper of nightingales and doves might have passed as a supreme jest. .All the world knows that Hitler has on occasion expatiated eloquently on the horrors of war and has declared that it would bring disaster alike to victor and vanquished, but that does not alter the fact that his whole policy is directed to war. Under his leadership, the German nation is more than ever militarised. The living standards of the people, and even reasonable standards of nutrition, are subordinated to military preparation. In contemplating the nests of nightingales at Berchtesgaden, Sir lan Hamilton appears to have forgotten all about even the most recent positive developments of German policy—the ruthless part Germany has played in assisting Italy to subjugate Spain, the seizure of Austria and the fate meted out to its people, and truculent threats and sinister intrigues Herr Hitler and his Nazi associates are at present directing against Czechoslovakia. Even the amiable fatuities Sir lan Hamilton has brought back from his visit to the German dictator embody an element of menace. “I am sure that Herr Hitler is horrified at the idea of a European Avar,” Sir lan said, ‘‘but there is a limit to the patience of a great nation.” If this means anything at all, it presumably means that Germany is prepared to go to war if she is not given her own way in Czechoslovakia, as she has been given it of late in other parts of Europe. Facing facts in the world today, it is apparent that Ino contribution to peace and security will be made bytruckling to Germany in her schemes of aggression and expansion. If there is any solution of the fearful problems by which nations are faced in Europe and in other parts of the world, it must be sought in the re-establishment of the influence of the League of Nations, which meantime is thrust aside, or into the background, even by those nations which declare that they still abide by the principles on which the League is based. Mr Winston Churchill summed up the position not long ago when he said:— If a number of States were -assembled around Great Britain and France in a solemn treaty for mutual defence against aggression; if they had their forces marshalled in what you may call a Grand Alliance; if they had their staff arrangements concerted; if all this rested, as it can honourably rest, upon the Covenant of the League of Nations, in pursuance of all the purposes and ideals of the League of Nations; if that were sustained, as it would be, by the moral sense of the world; and if it were done in the year 1938— and, believe me, it may be the last chance there will be for doing it—then 1 say that you might even now arrest this approaching war. Then perhaps the curse which overhangs Europe would pass away. . . . It is a matter of law or lawlessness in international affairs and meantime nothing is clearer than that Germany under Nazi leadership lias clone more than any other nation to plunge the world, once again into Avar and barbarism. That simple but appalling truth would stand out none the less clearly if the number of nightingales’ nests at Berchtesgaden were multiplied indefinitely.