Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1939. HITLER’S EXPANDING DEMANDS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1939. HITLER’S EXPANDING DEMANDS.

I<\ROM time to time indications are given that Germany betore loim mav so press and enlarge her demand for colonies as to create a serious international issue. Brief reports were cabled a day or two ago of some rather bellicose talk indulged in at a Reich colonial congress held in Vienna. talk of the kind certainly is in keeping with the ruling trend ot Nazi propaganda, though the extent to which it reflects the sentiments and ideas of the mass. of the German people may be another question.

Observations on this subject marked by practical common sense were made by Professor F. L. W. Wood, of Victoria College during a discussion which took place at a meeting ot men hi’Wellington on Thursday evening. Asked what was a fair thing to do about colonies, Professor Wood said, as he is reported:—

It depends how the demand for colonies is expressed. If. it.is part of a settlement you can believe in, well and good, but « the colony is to be used as a base against you, that is a different matter What is most important is whether the demand is made m such a way that giving in to it looks a concession by weakness to strength.

At the most immediate view it certainly would be an act of weakness and folly to hand over to Nazi Germany colonies m Africa or elsewhere which she would proceed to organise on a military basis as possible bases of attack by land, air, or sea. There have been some disclaimers by the Nazi dictatorship ol any intention of militarising colonies if it gets them, but Nazi assurances and promises have proved in practice to be 01. little value It is very much to the point, also, that every seizure of territory by Nazi Germany in Europe has been made the occasion for an extension and expansion of military power.

With a reign of law established in the world, the solution of the problem of African and other tropical colonies no doubt would be found in the establishment of some sort of international trusteeship—not improbably an extension and elaboration of the system of League of Nations mandates. Where they aie administered with justice to their native inhabitants, and m some instances where they are not, tropical colonies aie a liability rather than an asset to the nations that hold them. With international stability assured, there could be no reasonable objection, on economic or other grounds, to a consideiable extension of international control and a great deal might be said in favour of that development.

The position to be faced today, however, is that the demand for colonies is raised by a group of nations, headed by Germany, which scoffs at ideals of international order based on collective security and recognises no other right than that established by brute force. In a speech to the Reichstag some months ago, Herr Hitler expounded Nazi ideas on the subject of colonies and national possessions generally, not without a certain amount of plausibility and ingenuity. No one, he said, could seriously assume that, as in the case of Germany, “a mass of 80,000,000 intelligent persons, can be permanently condemned as pariahs, or be forced to remain passive for ever by having some ridiculous legal title, based solely on former acts of force, held up before them.” Having added that this was true not only of Germany, but of all nations in a similar position, he went on to contend that

it is quite clear that either the wealth of the world is divided by force, in which case this division will be corrected from time to time ’by force, or else the division is based on the ground of equity and therefore, also, of common sense, in which case equity and comifnon sense must also really serve the cause of justice and ultimately of expedience. But to assume that God has permitted some nations first to acquire a world by force and then to defend this robbery with moralising theories is perhaps comforting and above all comfortable for the “haves,” but not for the “have-nots.” It is just as unimportant as it is uninteresting and lays no obligation upon them.

It will be observed that the German dictator, in these observations, goes well beyond a demand for the restoration of Germany’s former colonies. He implies nothing less than that the British people, for example, have no right to hold their oversea Dominions if the German people feel that they have a greater need of these territories.

If it were considered necessary to answer these remarkable claims, an important part of the answer would be that throughout a great part of its history, and until world order was upset by people of the general type of Herr Hitler —that is to say, militarist megalomaniacs—settlement in the British Empire was freely open to people of many races, with unqualified benefit io humanity at large. If the world escapes from its present disorders, an equitable, and unhampered use of its resources no doubt will be a necessary and natural part of the evolution of modern civilisation. But this by no means implies that at this or any later stage of human progress the free nations of the world' should be prepared to abase themselves before hectoring dictators who seek, as Hitler does, to reduce his own nation and others to the principles and practice of so many barbarian hordes.