Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1938. ANOTHER EUROPEAN CHAPTER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1938. ANOTHER EUROPEAN CHAPTER.

ACCOR-DING to a cablegram from London which was published yesterday the British Government has accepted the withdrawal of ten thousand Italians from Spam as fulfilling the definition of “substantial withdrawal and is ready, on that and other grounds, to proceed with the implementation of the Anglo-Italian Agreement which has been held in suspense for a good many months past. So far as Spain is concerned, th.e .understanding reached appears at a direct view to expose finally the hollow insincerity and one-sided effect of the so-called NonIntervention Agreement. Entering into a specific agreement with Italy, Britain will have no apparent reply to the charge that she is thus countenancing Italy’s continued intervention on a large scale in Spain.

There are reported to be some modifying factors in the situation, but the degree of significance and importance to be attached to them is somewhat uncertain. An oversea correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald stated recently that: — ,

Signor Mussolini realises quite well that the Italian intervention in Spain cannot be continued m the old way. In Italy itself the protests against the war are becoming louder, while conflicts between the Italians in Spain and the Spanish troops and civilians under General Franco’s control are arising more and more regularly.

There is some other evidence that Mussolini is preparing to modify his policy in Spain Io a. much greater degree than is indicated in the famous, or notorious, withdrawal of the'ten thousand. It has been suggested, for example, that France is unlikely to' have taken the step she took recently of appointing an Ambassador to Rome —a step which automatically involved the recognition of the King of Italy as Emperor of Ethiopia—without some reasonable assurance or expectation that possibilities of conflict in Spain would be minimised. At best, however, the outlook is somewhat obscure and it has yet to appear that concessions by France and Britain'to Italy are any more an effective contribution to European peace than was the much-discussed Munich agreement.

One reported possibility in Spain is that Germany may insist upon a still stronger intervention in that country even if it should be necessary to supersede General Franco in. the command of the Nationalist army. In view of the failure of Franco’s autumn offensive, a settlement in Spain should be possible if foreign combatants were withdrawn. When the Spanish Prime Minister, Senor Juan Negrin, announced at Geneva at the end of September the withdrawal of the International Brigade and expressed a hope that finally all Spaniards would be reconciled, there were public demonstrations in San Sebastian and other cities of Nationalist Spain in favour of such a. reconciliation. The demonstrations were suppressed, but their significance remains.

There are grounds for believing that Spaniards would come before long to soihe reasonable composition of their differences if foreign intervention were terminated. Whether Spain is to be accorded that measure of freedom remains, however, -extremely doubtful. It is with matters in that slate, apparently, that Britain proposes to implement the Anglo-Italian Agreement. HITLER’S BRAND OF MERCY. ALTHOUGH it rests of necessity on something less than official authority, there is nothing inherently improbable in the report that Herr Hitler has offered the former Austrian Chancellor, Dr Kurt von Sehuschnigg, the chance of avoiding life imprisonment or execution by declaring his conversion to Hitlerism. On the contrary, this reported offer is perfectly in keeping with all that is known about, the German dictator’s outlook and methods. Presumably only men who seek 1o make martyrs of murderers could dream of looking upon Dr Sehuschnigg as a criminal. His “crime” is that he sought to defend the liberty and sovereignty of his country against Nazi usurpation. . Hitler and his henchmen are incapable of entertaining feelings of respect, or even of toleration, for brave and honest opponents. They demand slavish submission and in that fact the character of the Nazi movement is made manifest.

Vilely as Jewish and other minorities have been and are being persecuted in Nazi Germany, the true line of demarcation the Nazis have established is not between Aryans and Jews, but between men who are prepared to be slaves and men who are determined to be free. The offer Hitler is now said to have made to Dr Sehuschnigg is entirely in conformity with the suppression of freedom by the Nazis and with their practice of consigning all bold and upstanding opponents to death, exile, or imprisonment and maltreatment in concentration camps. With its other features which command attention at the present day, the political faith of the Nazis and kindred political faiths, are to be reckoned with, as perhaps the most formidable development of the system of slavery the world has ever seen.