WAR FEARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1938, Page 4

WAR FEARS

UNEXPECTED SOLUTION CHAMBERLAIN’S MIRACLE COMMENTS BY TRAVELLERS. “When we left England at the end of August I would riot have believed that war could be averted,” said Mr H. E. Hill, supervising chemist and toxicologist at the Government Chemical Laboratory, Perth, when he arrived at Auckland by the Rotorua recently, after attending the 10th International Chemistry Congress at Rome. Mr Hill said he quite believed when he boarded the ship that war would have broken out before he reached Australia, so generally was it regarded as inevitable in England. He heard of Mr Chamberlain’s success as one hears of a miracle. Mr Hill attended the congress in May and although he did not spend sufficient time in any of the countries of Europe he subsequently visited to form any decision about the outlook of the people, he had gained the impression in Germany that the average German did not want war. DISLIKE OF THE NAZIS. Mr Hill spent several days in Munich, scene of the recent settlement, and saw enough of the Nazis in their headquarters to form a general dislike for them. However, he did not think the ordinary German citizen was in the same‘class as the uniformed Nazis, whom he termed “truculent, ruthless and arrogant.” “I do not think anybody can see this Nazi type without coming to fear them for what they inight do,” said Mr Hill. “It is not the ordinary German who has to be watched, but the vociferous minority. They are the ones who seem to have been responsible for the recent events, and they are the ones I came to dislike during my short stay in Germany. Otherwise I met kindliness everywhere and the German people are all friendly and hospitable to the visitor.” FEELING IN ITALY. Mr Hill was still in Italy when the first Czechoslovakian incidents occurred last May. It was a commentary upon conditions in Europe that he learned of the danger of war quite by accident. He had not heard a word about it among Italians, but instead discovered the seriousness of the situation when a woman, who was either English or American, arrived at Florence, having been advised to leave Czechoslovakia. Another passenger by the Rotorua, Mr G. E. Clay, of Sydney, spent a number of months in Europe and was in Italy at the time Herr Hitler visited Signor Mussolini. Mr Clay said he was surprised to discover, because, he had seen that Mussolini had done much for Italy, that here and there an undercurrent of opinion existed among Italians against the dictator. He had also been given reason to believe that Hitler was not so popular among many Italian people as might be thought elsewhere in the world. 1 - Mr Clay had spoken to a number of junior Italian officers about the Abyssinian conquest and to a man they would not have anything said against it. Abyssinia was a wonderful colony, they told Mr Clay, and they were so enthusiastic about it that they firmly believed that nobody ever got sick there, in spite of the fact that hundreds of Italians had been sent home because of severe illness.