NAZI DRIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 March 1939, Page 5

NAZI DRIVE

MOVE FOR INTENSIFICATION TRADE PACT SIGNED WITH HOLLAND. WILL INCREASE VOLUME OF TRADE. (Independent Cable Service.) LONDON, March 26. Reports from Holland, Yugoslavia, and Belgium indicate that the Nazi drive is to be intensified. It is officially stated that a GermanDutch trade pact has been signed. It will be effective from April 1 till December 31, 1940. It is reported from Belgrade that Yugoslav members of the permanent German and Yugoslav Economic Committee have been invited to Berlin next month. It is believed that Germany expects to get a trade agreement as favourable as the Rumanian pact. It is also stated that Herr Hitler may try to take a hand in the Croat autonomist movement with the object of gaining control of an Adriatic port. Messages from Paris report that it is authoritatively stated that the trade treaty between Germany and Rumanian gives Germany oil rights only in respect of new wells and that France retains her rights to the old wells under the treaty of 1935.

PRESS ATTACKS ANTI-BRITISH campaign IN GERMANY. FAILURE OF ENCIRCLEMENT EFFORTS. (Independent Cable Service.) BERLIN, March 26. The anti-British Press campaign is in full swing. Newspapers are jubilant at what is described as the collapse of British efforts to form an encirclingcoalition. The failure is said to be because of military weakness. Small States, it is alleged, know that such a pact not only does not offer them security, but is a menace to their safety.

A semi-official declaration made yesterday states that it is no longer possible to force Germany to her knees by blockade. Germany's living space was still insufficient to enable her to withdraw within her own frontiers. She must, therefore, continue to foster foreign trade. Here begins the importance of the German-Rumanian treaty. Germany’s territory has been increased from 177,000 to 250,000 square miles. Recent events have assured her of the predominance in Europe of German industry, whose capacity is now almost- equal to that of the United States of America.

It is announced that conscripts of the 1920 class residing abroad must return to Germany for compulsory labour and military service beginning on May 1. HITLER’S GREETINGS MESSAGE TO MUSSOLINI. STAND TO GUARANTEE PEACE. BERLIN, March 26. Herr Hitler has sent a message to Signor Mussolini cordially greeting “the victorious creator of the new, proud and powerful Italy,” and declaring that Germans stand shoulder to shoulder with Italians to guarantee the world’s peace. The message celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of Fascism.