Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1939. HITLER’S LATEST CONQUEST.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1939. HITLER’S LATEST CONQUEST.

ACCORDING to a statement made in the House of Commons hyMr Chamberlain—a statement which may come to be regarded on some grounds as remarkable —there has been no unprovoked aggression against Czechoslovakia on account o which Britain could have been called upon to honour her proposed guarantee to that country. When the British rime Minister made this statement, events had progressed only so far that Slovakia, with Nazi countenance and support, had broken away from the Czechoslovak Union. Mr Chambeilain no doubt will now be prepared to contend that Britain mils still be held entirely free of responsibility, although Czechoslovakia has been wiped out of existence —the Czech people, in. terms of the announcement reported today, being taken under the protection of the German Reich.”

It has to be admitted that the latest development makes no essential change in the situation that already existed. Prior to the announcement now made, what was an independent and ■well-organised democratic republic, with a population of some fifteen millions, had already been reduced by stages to fragments individually so weak'that they could hope to continue to exist only by the grace of larger and more powerful neighbours. The Czech Government, for instance, was already under orders to reconstruct itself on lines approved by the German dictatorship.

No doubt if is held by Mr Chamberlain and a good many other people that this process of disintegration is none of Britain’s business. The possibility suggests itself,, however, that the ultimate outcome may b"e of considerable importance to Britain and to every other European Power. As a result of the events and developments of the last few days, Nazi Germany evidently is to a notable degree better placed than she was to pursue, for example, schemes aiming ostensibly at the creation of an autonomous Ukraine. /

Of these schemes, M. Stalin said a few days ago, in an address to the eighteenth congress of the Bolshevist Party: —

It is possible that there are madmen in Germany dreaming of annexing the elephant of the Soviet Ukraine to that beetle, the Carpatho-Ukraine but if these madmen really exist we will find sufficient strait-jackets for them.

The Carpatho-Ukraine (the eastern extremity of Slovakia) admittedly is a very small territory in comparison with the rich and extensive Soviet Ukraine, or even with that part of the Ukraine now included in Poland. There are about one million Ukrainians in the Carpatho-Ukraine, as against five to seven millions in Poland and 26,000,000 in the Soviet Ukraine, this last one of the most productive areas of Russia, with a huge output of grain, cotton, iron, coal and timber. It possesses also, at Dnepropetrovsk, on the Dnieper, the second-largest power plant in the world. Another 800,000 Ukrainians are located in Rumanian Bessarabia.

Although the Carpatho-Ukraine is in itself of minor importance, it is possible that, as a puppet State in German hands, it may be of considerable value to the Nazis as a base from which to develop,, if only by political agitation and conspiracy, the ambitions relating to the Ukraine which were proclaimed frankly by Hitler in his address at Nuremberg in 1936, when he said :—

If I had the Ural Mountains, with their incalculable store of treasures in raw materials, Siberia with its vast forests and the Ukraine with its tremendous wheatfields, Germany would swim in plenty.

Though the German dictatorship is hardly yet in a position to make any direct bid for either the possession or control of the Ukraine, it may be taken for granted that the dominance now gained over the Carpatho-Ukraine and neighbouring territories will bo turned to full account in fostering and encouraging the movement for the establishment of a Greater Ukraine, independent of Russia.

With Germany as a neighbour, Poland probably is rather badly placed to suppress a nationalist agitation by the millions of Ukrainians within her borders and Roumania may be faced by similar troubles. Even Russia may not be able to regard German schemes in this category quite with the easy contempt expressed by M. Stalin in the speech which has been quoted. Indeed, there is positive evidence that the Soviet Government views the position very seriously and has taken its measures accordingly. The .Moscow correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor” wrote on this subject recently:—

The Ukrainian nationalist movement is the strongest of' all nationalist movements in Russia since the revolution. Moscow has been compelled to “purge” Ukrainian officialdom. In the recent nation-wide purges the Ukraine has been the heaviest sufferer. The higher bureaucracy in the Ukraine has almost literally vanished into prisons, concentration camps of exile. Moscow has endeavoured to fill up key positions in the Ukraine even more than elsewhere in Russia, with young men educated elsewhere than in Ukrainian schools.

There is some evidence that Japan, as well as Germany, has sent many secret agents into the Ukraine and has established close touch with Ukrainian nationalist leaders. The vigilance of the Soviet and its ruthless measures of repression may defeat German and other foreign machinations in the Ukraine, but the Ukrainian nationalist movement is a factor of which Germany certainly will make the most, and she is very much better placed now to pursue this project than she was before the Czechoslovak Republic had been broken into fragments.