Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1939. DEALING WITH DICTATORS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1939. DEALING WITH DICTATORS.

’THOUGH there is a sharp and clear distinction to be drawn X between Nazi professions and performance, the speech to be delivered by Herr Hitler: today at the opening of the Reichstag—a speech in which he is to reply to President Roosevelt’s recent peace, appeal—will be awaited with a good deal of interest. The Nazi, dictatorship has so often violated its pledged word—particularly in dealing with Austria, and with Czechoslovakia—that any assurances the Fuehrer may offer in the speech he is to deliver today will inspire in themselves little enough confidence. Apart from any question o. ultimate good faith, however, the speech may be expected to indicate in some degree whether Herr Hitler is prepaied o m restrained, in his aims and methods of aggression, by the rising tide of opposition in. the democratic and Socialist States, oi. is determined to pursue his self-appointed mission, giving no thought to the possible consequences.

Whatever the Fuehrer may say on this occasion, reasons for looking to the future with confidence will appear only m the extent to which our own nation, and others are able to establish positive defences and safeguards against further aggression by the totalitarian dictatorships. The announecnient of the'institution of conscription in Britain—no doubt made deliberately almost on the eye of the opening of the Reichstag—is only the last of a series of indications that the British Government has turned its back resolutely on the policy of weak concession to Hitler and his fellow dictator.

As the policy of Britain and France, and that of smaller nations to which they have given guarantees —Poland, Rumania and Greece —is now defined, the dictatorships, and particularly Nazi Germany, are definitely challenged. In effect they are warned that they cannot engage in further aggression without plunging Europe into war.

The burden Britain and France have thus shouldered is no light, one. The United States conies into the picture meantime only as promising moral, and probably economic support in the event of a conflict between the democracies and th’e dictatorships. What part Russia would play has not yet been made finally clear, but it may be noted that in the extent to which the democracies have reached agreement with the Soviet they are likely to find it difficult to reach any acceptable understanding with Hitler. It has been said, by Dlr G. E. R. Gedye, in “Fallen Bastions,” that:—“While Hitler will discuss temperately and bargain about this and that, he has nfever tolerated discussion of three matters concerning which he has had Revelations from the Teutonic God—Austria, Soviet Russia and the Jews. About these he KNOWS.”

The lengths to which Nazi Germany has been allowed to carry successful aggression in Middle Europe evidently have not simplified the problem by which Britain and France, and their possible allies, are confronted. It. may be seen now very easily that a, terrible mistake was made in allowing the Nazis to seize Austria and Czechoslovakia and to acquire an influence and measure of control over Spain at least rivalling that of Italy. In the conditions that have been established in Europe, Hungary no doubt must be regarded as a base available at any time to Germany for an attack on Rumania.

Even if Herr Hitler’s speech today should tend in its immediate effect to lighten the existing strain, the democracies will not be any less than they are now under the necessity of preparing to cope with an acute emergency. The brief but tempestuous history of the Nazi dictatorship demonstrates that its only policy is aggression—open or veiled. Hitler may feel it necessary now to modify his plans ol aggression, as he did in 1934, when .Mussolini threatened to move Italian troops to tin* Brenner Pass in defence of Austrian independence, but in light of what has since happened to Austria it would be unwise io huso undue hopes upon any immediate concession of the kind by the Nazis.

Barren as the Nazi movement is of genuinely constructive aims or achievement, its adherents have exhibited a remarkable address in jjj'olilin<z- by sectional divisions and discord in areas marked out for ultimate conquest and in making effective use of weapons of economic pressure and political agitation. Recent news has shown that they are making great efforts to extend their economic influence over Itnmania and Yugoslavia and the usual incidentals of Nazi conspiracy and intrigue no doubt will follow. Assuming that the danger ol immediate or early European war can be averted, it is likely to remain a condition of continued peace that means should be lound of countering persistent and powerful efforts directed by llm Nazis (o flle undermining of small States which are not well placed individually to withstand an onset of the kind, ft becomes, in fact, ste'adilv clearer that in the absence of an effective League of Nations, the problem of re-establishing European peace uu secure foundations threatens to defy solution.