DENMARK’S POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1939, Page 9

DENMARK’S POLICY

BALANCING FEAT DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN. j' PENETRATION OF GERMAN INFLUENCE. Balanced a little uneasily on the north-west corner of Germany, its i traditional equilibrium disturbed by the Reich’s foreign policy, Denmark is fighting with the weapons of diplomacy to ensure the maintenance of its independence, writes the Copenhagen correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor.” Conciliation with Germany on the one hand, weighted by a strengthening of those ties which bind Denmark to the rest of the Scandinavian countries on the other, is seen here as the policy Denmark is to pursue. It is a balancing feat which is difficult to maintain. In official circles, the penetration of National Socialist influence is minimised. But investigation shows that this penetration is spreading and is giving the Government a difficult problem, for Denmark must find an answer to the question of how to stamp out foreign interference in its internal affairs without actually offending its powerful neighbour. National Socialist penetration is seen in the growth of secret party organisations in Copenhagen, where a recent Court case revealed that the National Socialists had succeeded in obtaining important influence within the ranks of the Danish police, in German loans for Danish farmers in South Jutland, in “trade pressure” by which Germany has forced Danish firms to dismiss Jewish employees, and to sell only “Aryan” goods, and in the increasing influence of German advertisers over the Copenhagen press. Against all this. Denmark has to fight cautiously. Arrests of spies, the banning of the antiJewish paper Der Stunner, and the trial and sentencing of openly treasonable propagandists, show that Denmark is fully awake to the dangers which surround it. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Denmark intends to pursue a very conciliatory policy.