TOTAL DEFEAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 October 1938, Page 8

TOTAL DEFEAT

SUSTAINED BY BRITAIN & FRANCE MR CHURCHILL’S SWEEPING CRITICISM. CZECHS COULD NOT HAVE GOT WORSE TERMS. / (Received This Day, 12.55 p.m. ) LONDON, October 5. In the course of the House of Commons debate, Mr Winston Churchill said England had sustained a total and unmitigated defeat and France something even worse. The utmost the Prime Minister had been able to secure had been that Herr Hitler, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, was content to have them served to him, course by course. The terms Mr Chamberlain brought from Munich could easily have been agreed through diplomatic channels at any time during the summer.

“I believe,” said Mr Churchill, “that the Czechs, left to themselves and knowing they were not to get help from the Powers, would have been able to make better terms and could hardly have got worse. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude for England and Prance. We cannot consider Czechoslovakia's abandonment after what happened last month. It is the most grievious consequence we have yet experienced of what we have done or left undone during the past five years—five years of futile good intentions.” Mr Chamberlain, replying to Captain Wedgwood Benn, said it was a mistake to assume that the whole of the Czech defences had been handed over intact. The <areas being occupied on October 1 and October 10 were mostly outside the defences. It was impossible to state the proportion included by October 10 until the International Commission had reached a decision. He added that the commission was considering the question of the removal of guns and other materials from the zones coming under occupation. Mr Chamberlain, dealing with the fate of Czech hostages, said the British representatives on the International Commission had been instructed to press for their release as soon as possible.