Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1938. HITLER CONSENTS TO PARLEY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 September 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1938. HITLER CONSENTS TO PARLEY.

* AT the stage to which events were carried in yesterday’s news, Europe was threatened with imminent catastrophe. Today comes the welcome announcement that Herr Hitler has agreed to postpone for twenty-four hours the timelimit set in his ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, in order that representatives of the Powers may confer in Munich. This does not in itself go very far, but as far as it goes it improves and brightens the outlook considerably. There is some hope that pressure from both outside and inside Germany may be brought to bear on the, li* uehiei in the interests of European and world peace. There can be no doubt about Herr Hitler s responsibility in this mailer. It is a responsibility divided only in the extent—an extent not very accurately known—to which control over Germany is shared by the Fuehrer with others. Some minor details of the situation that centres on Czechoslovakia may remain to be determined, but the leading and essential facts of the position are quite clearly established. In light of these facts, the account of the position and of his own actions given by Herr Hitler in his reply to President Roosevelt, of which an extended summary was published yesterday, undoubtedly, is a work of imagination—an effort altogether worthy, in its discreditable kind, of the man who wrote (in “Mein Kampf”) : The German has not the slightest notion how a people must be misled if the adherence of the masses is sought. It is not true that the Czechs have been guilty of “violence and sanguinary terrorism” against the Sudetens and there is as little truth in the Fuehrer’s assertion that “the terrible conditions of the Sudetens makes a delay in the solution impossible.” What has happened during recent days of disorder remains to be made clear in detail, but for the last twenty years the Sudeten Germans have been Jiving in Czechoslovakia in conditions of secure and sheltered liberty which are in absolute contrast to the state of affairs ruling in Nazi Germany. These happy conditions, modified only by comparatively minor grievances which might easily have been rectified by action within the wellordered Czechoslovakian State, have been destroyed by a malign conspiracy developed for years past by Herr Hitler and his Nazi associates. There is yet another departure from truth in Herr Hitler’s reply to President Roosevelt in the assertion that: — Since the Czech Government had previously agreed to the cession of Sudetenland, the terms of the German memorandum pursue no other end than to bring about a rapid, certain and just fulfilment of the Czech promise. On this vital point, Herr Hitler is directly contradicted by the, British Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain) who has said: “I find Herr Hitler’s attitude (this with reference to the Fuehrer’s ultimatum reported yesterday) unreasonable in his final demands” and further:— I can well understand the reasons why the Czech .Government has felt itself unable to accept the terms of the German memorandum; yet I believe, after all my talks with Herr Hitler, that if only time will allow, . it ought to be possible to reach a settlement by agreement under conditions which will ensure fair treatment for the populations concerned. The essential facts are unmistakably clear. For the sake of peace, the Czechs have agreed to make a heavy sacrifice of territory. They have refused, however, to hand over this territory in conditions which would enable the German Nazis to plunder at will non,-German or non-Nazi sections of the population of districts in some of which, it is said, not more than fifty per cent of the inhabitants are German. As the position stood yesterday, Herr Hitler was refusing to abate a jot of his palpably unjust demands and insisting on an instant settlement on his dictated terms. In all justice and reason, it must be hoped that the ■ Fuehrer’s agreement to postpone his ultimatum for a day and to meet the British and French Prime Ministers and Signor Mussolini at Munich does not mark the limit of concession and approach to a settlement by agreement. One effect of the gain of time, it may be hoped, will be to enable the people of Germany to become acquainted with the actual position and the course into which they are being Jed—to make them alive to the fact that persistence by Herr Hitler in the stand he has thus far taken would mean, not a “little war” with the Czechs, but a disastrous conflict involving all Europe and much of the world besides.