Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1939. AMERICA AND NAZI AGGRESSION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1939. AMERICA AND NAZI AGGRESSION.

QNE of the most intriguing expressions that has ever been embodied in an. official pronouncement is the word “temporary, ” used by the American Assistant-Secretary of State (Mr Sumner Welles) with reference to the present fate of Czechoslovakia. All the more, perhaps, because, Mr Welles declined to enter into explanations, the lisp of this word in a considered statement made with full authority on behalf of the American Government must be regarded as giving the Nazi dictatorship serious cause for thought. Herr Hitler and his associates no doubt would be extremely ill-advised to dismiss with contempt the declaration that the American Government

cannot refrain from making known this country’s condemnation of acts which have resulted in the temporary extinguishment of the liberties of a free and independent people with whom the people of the United States have maintained especially close and friendly relations.

The precise significance of the use of the word “temporary” in this passage may be anything from the mere expression of a pious hope to an indication by the United States of its belief that forces have been set in motion which may be expected to lead to a righting of the wrong done to Czechoslovakia. In any case the American Government has deliberately pronounced a sentence of moral outlawry on Nazi Germany, not, only in its condemnation of the extinguishment of Czech liberties, but in the further statement that: —

It is manifest that acts of wanton lawlessness and arbitrary force are threatening world peace and the very structure of modern civilisation.

It may appear that, the total effect, of the American pronouncement. is much weakened by the fact that it remains, for the time at least, a matter of words. The United States Government is not proposing to take any warlike or other positive action on behalf of the Czechs, although President Roosevelt has said that early proposals will be made to amend the American Neutrality Act and has paraphrased his own Message to Congress in January last in the statement that the United States “could find ways short of wav but stronger than words to help to stem aggression.”

Meantime this promises no more than that Congress will have an opportunity of making such changes in the neutrality law as will enable the United States to use its economic strength against aggressors and in support of the victims of aggression. The American Government’s condemnation of Nazi aggression cannot, however, be dismissed as mere rhetoric. On the contrary, it seems bound to have positive results of considerable importance.

According to a cablegram published on Saturday, mounting Nazi fury is, evident and diplomatic consequences are forecasted as a result of Mr. A. Duff Cooper’s personal attack 'on Herr Hitler in the House of Commons—the attack in which Mr. Duff Cooper spoke of the Fuehrer as “a thrice-perjured traitor and breaker of oaths.” The point is said to have been made in Berlin that neither the Speaker of the House of Commons nor any member of the British Government intervened, ‘‘which seems to sanction the attack officially. ”

Where the American Government’s condemnation of Nazi aggression is concerned, no such speculation is possible. The ‘‘attack” in this instance is definitely official, and it puts even greater odium on the Nazi dictatorship than did Mr. Duff Cooper’s onslaught on Herr Hiller. Accepting the American condemnation in silence, Herr Hitler and his associates would admit that it was justified. They would in effect plead guilty to casting off all restrains of law and to committing acts of wanton lawlessness and arbitrary force ‘‘threatening world peace and the very structure of modern civilisation.” On the other hand, in attempting to repel this condemnation, the Nazi dictatorship would in the first instance have no case on which to proceed, and in the next could not well take any action that would not invite immediate and punishing retaliation by the United States.

Any break' in. diplomatic or economic relationships, for example, would be likely to be vastly more damaging to Germany than to the United States. The Nazi dictatorship has put itself so completely and abominably in the wrong that any action it may take in attempting to repel the American condemnation seems bound to recoil on its own head. On that account particularly, ami in view of the possibilities obviously raised, the outspoken declaration of the American Government must be regarded as offering much more than verbal support, to the European democracies in the stand they are now evidently bound to take against totalitarian aggression.