AMERICA SHOCKED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1939, Page 7

AMERICA SHOCKED

TWILIGHT OF LIBERTY IN CENTRAL EUROPE FURTHER GERMAN DRIVE ANTICIPATED. POLICY OF ALOOFNESS QUESTIONED. WASHINGTON, March 15. Administration officials expect a further German drive, eastward soon. Painful dissatisfaction is expressed in some quarters with the silent and unprotesting acquiescence of Britain and France. It is feared that the latest German success will dissipate the recent strengthening of the smaller Euro-

pean countries. Senator Pittman, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, predicted that Herr Hitler would advance eastward “till his ambition is satisfied,” adding that his threats have shattered any possible combination against him.

Senator Pittman said that Japan was moving in the same way toward the southern Pacific, albeit slowly. Senator Borah placed on Britain and France the responsibility, through Munich, for empowering Herr Hitler to encroach on Central Europe. He predicted that there would be no general war “so long as there are enough small nations for the large ones to divide up.” A New York message states that, while Czechoslovak bonds are breaking up, financial circles there are of the opinion that the Nazis’ main object is to secure the Czechoslovak Central Bank’s 83,000,000 dollars of gold. The 46,000,000 dollars seized from Austria is believed to be exhausted. It did not appear in a statement settiissout the condition ? df the' Reichsbank and bankers in New York state that it was withheld from Dr Schacht, the then director Of the Reichsbank, and that the Nazi Party used it. to buy materials abroad.

The “New York Times” comments that it is understandable that Britain and France, having determined that it is beyond their power to resist .the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, should look resolutely elsewhere. “It is also understandable that many Americans, remembering the United States’ big part in the formation of Czechoslovakia, should feel that American aloofness from the work of postwar reconstruction was one of the early influences in a series of events that have ended in the final act of degradation.”

The paper adds: “Herr Hitler has been demanding colonies, and Slovakia is as much as colony as Togoland. It is clear that the old German dream of a “Mittel Europa,” dominated by Berlin is closer to realisation than ever before. This is the twilight ,of liberty in central Europe.” INTERNAL DISPUTE FRENCH VIEW OF NAZI ACTION. NOT BOUND TO PROTECT CZECHS. PARIS, March 15. The Foreign Office spokesman emphasised that France’s vital interests were not involved. She did not consider that the Munich guarantees bound her to prevent the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, when, as in the present case, the dispute was internal.