Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1939. PARLEYING WITH GERMANY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1939. PARLEYING WITH GERMANY.

KORD ZETLAND, Secretary for India, is the latest of a not undistinguished group of British public men lo lilt his voice in favour of direct discussions with Germany with a view to terminating a race in armaments which he justly calls insane. About the insanity of the armaments race there can be no question, but it also seems certain that other means than direct discussion must be adopted of inducing the present regime in Germany even to consider making an end 01. this insanity. A frank statement of Nazi policy and aims was macle in Berlin on Wednesday last by Field-Marshal Goering, who ranks second only to Herr Hitler in the Nazi dictatorship. In a. speech on Air Force Day, Marshal Goering said that:— If war had resulted from the Czech crisis in September, Germany intended to crush her prospective opponents by one lightning blow from the air. One order, and the inferno of bell would have been unleashed. Peace was not saved because the justice of Germany’s cause was realised, but because ■ the people knew that if the problem was not solved peaceably Germany would solve it by other methods. The world knew we were not bluffing. Accepted as sincere, this statement surely brands the man who made it and the dictatorship on whose behalf he spoke as incapable of entering into any agreement that would be acceptable lo peace-loving nations in Europe and in other parts of the world. There are possible standards of compromise in international, as in national dealings, but save in a world given over to anarchy these standards evidently cannot be held to extend to despots who are prepared to unleash the horrors of air warfare in Europe in support of such demands as Germany formulated in September last. Well-intentioned people like Lord Zetland, who talk about open possibilities of agreement with Germany, overlook the moral gulf that separates the Nazi dictators from, all who desire that peace and a reign of law should be re-established in Europe. It is in fact a. self-evident condition of approach to that goal that Britain should avoid any extension of entangling agreements with Germany anil should insist upon working for the establishment of broader safeguards of peace. For the moment, Britain and France are relying largely upon their identity of aims, and upon the pooling of their expanding military resources, for security against totalitarian aggression. It now seems reasonably certain that if the worst should come to the worst, the European democracies could count upon powerful backing by the United States, at least in the provision of war materials and supplies. One great question that remains unsettled concerns the relations to be established with Russia. The value of the Franco-Soviet Pact, which once seemed capable of imposing a. powerful restraint on Germany, has become somewhat nominal and the present British Government until recently had definitely taken up the attitude of rebuffing Russia. Interesting and possibly hopeful prospects are raised, however, by some recent developments—the opening of trade discussions with Russia and Mr Chamberlain’s significant attendance, reported yesterday, at a parly at the Soviet Embassy in London. Much as mass trials, wholesale executions and purges in Russia have antagonised British opinion, the participation of the Soviet is very necessary in any hopeful attempt to organise and establish peace in Europe. Against anything that is said in criticism of the internal methods pursued in Russia, it, has to be admitted, as a Conservative member of the House of ('ominous (Mr Robert Boothby) wrote recently, that the conduct, of the Soviet, Government in its-capacity as a member of lhe League of Nations has been beyond reproach. In considering the political relationship between the Soviet Union and the British Empire (Mr Boothby added), three things have to be borne in mind. The first that between them they represent an overwhelming aggregation of material strength and power; the second that the primary interest of both is the preservation of peace; and the third that neither wants anything from the other.

Whore the violation of humanitarian standards tint! principles in the conduct of internal affairs is concerned, Nazi Germany, at all events over a parallel period, has a much darker record than Soviet Russia. In the international field, Russia appears to he as definitely intent on peace and stability as Germany is on predatory aggression. Britain probably could make no more terrible blunder than in promoting or consenting to the promotion of a Western European pact designed to exclude aud isolate Russia. (