Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 27. 1939. A CRISIS IN SUSPENSE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 27. 1939. A CRISIS IN SUSPENSE.

PERHAPS the most remarkable feature ol the Danzig' ciibis 1 is the'manner in which it continues A \ itllout ,. euln .\ "pT F.or many weeks the Nazis in Danzig, together with introduced reinforcements, have been proclaiming their determination i to return to the Reich., but it is not more obvious that d iea demonstration has been organised on these lines an . end than that the people behind the demonstration ate meant exercising restraint.

There have been several frontier incidents involving shooting, and twice at least the loss of a life, and dav an exchange of shots between Danzig and Polish hontiei -nards was reported. Decisive action, however, continues to be postponed. The Nazis are using against Danzig the same preliminary tactics as they used m turn againstAist.ua Czechoslovakia and other victims of their aggression, but up to the present thev have carefully avoided pushing these tactics to their logical conclusion, in accordance with precedent, wheie the Free City is concerned. Suggestive evidence is thus being supplied that the Nazis, in spite of their unabated bluster, aie keenly alive to the dangers that aggressive action against Danzig would entail.

A '-real deal of water has flowed under the European bri(]oes”since the Munich Conference met. some ten months ao-o The policy of appeasment, having been discredited finally and decisively when Herr Hitler laid violent hands on Bohemia and Moravia' in March last, is now dead and buried, lhe question of an agreement between the Western democracies and Russia still hangs in doubt, but even so the situation today is vitally different from that in which Nazi Germany was given an entirely free hand to work her will upon a disarmed Czechoslovakia.

As against Ihe desperate efforts that were made m September last to appease and satisfy Germany, she is now told in plain terms that if she attempts to settle the Danzig question bv violent methods she will find herself at war, not only with Poland, but with Britain and France. The outcome has yet to appear but already it is indicated that the Nazi dictatorship will not very willingly lay hands on Danzig at the price ol European war.

In their past acts of aggression, the Nazis have gained lheii ends by the threat of war, without actually going to war Although an eleilient of conjecture enters into estimates ol relative military strength, in the air and in other particulais, available evidence on lhe whole goes to show that Germany has poorer prospects than she might have had la,st year ol gaining victory in the “lightning war’’ on which her propagandists have enlarged. There is overwhelming evidence that Germany is far from brine.' as well placed as the democracies which stand opposed to her aggressive designs to .bear the strains and stresses of a long war. It is a great part of the story that the workers of the Reich, organised and dragooned as the slaves of a military despotism, are already to a serious extent underfed and overworked.

If that were all. it would be possible to reckon with some eoiiiidence upon Germany being unlikely to iorce the issue at Danzig or anywhere else in lace ol the awakened determination of the democracies to resist further aggression. The question arises, however, whether the men who have organised Germany lor war are now capable of arresting oi changing their course. Exercising an entirely dictatorial control over the German people and over German material resources of every kind, t hose "militarists have now brought about a state ol affairs in which the Reich is threatened with uncontrollable inflation in spite of all that despotic authority can do to hold it in cheek.

So long as Dr Schacht was allowed to direct German economic poliev it retained some essential features ol orthodoxy and stability. ’ Schacht issued a warning that not all the coercion of the Gestapo eoiild prevent inflation if the expansion of credit were continued after the nation was working Io capacitv. In other words, as an overseas commentator has put if : “|f the nation’s resources "were being fully utilised, more credit, far from increasing production, would only raise prices, despite governmental edicts.”

Germany plainly is menaced by the late here indicated. She derived some temporary relief from the seizure-oi gold reserve's in Austria and Czechoslovakia and other economic trains resulting from her snceesslul aggression, On the othei hand, the incorporation of the new .territories has in some respects auirravated the trade problems ol the keich. I lei financial methods, which embody as outstanding features men-! less taxation and the levying of forced loans, are definitely and inevitably inflationary and the nation is working to capacity. Germany, in fact, is drawing heavily upon the normal needs of her people in order to build up armaments. In these circumstances. the danger confronting Germany and the world is that Ihe Nazi dictatorship may prefer to plunge into a desperate gamble of war rather than attempt to grapple with an internal economic catastrophe which would be likely to make the former post-war inflation of the German mark look like a comparatively mild, disorder.