Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1940. WAR SENTIMENT IN GERMANY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 February 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1940. WAR SENTIMENT IN GERMANY.

QOME people entertain, perhaps too lightly, hopes that, the war may be ended by a revolt in Germany against the Nazis. Others go to an opposite extreme in declaring, not only that any generakand spontaneous uprising ol the German people against their present dictators is unthinkable (an opinion there is admittedly much to support), but that m the Germans the Allies are faced by a united and resolute enemy who will fight, to the last ditch. For the last-mentioned contention, at least, there appears to be a complete lack ol supporting evidence and a great deal which tells in the opposite direction. It is attested by many well-informed observers that there is a tremendous contrast between the spirit in which the peoples of the. Allied countries and those of Germany entered into the present conflict. Writing on this subject a lew weeks ago, the Berlin correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” Mr Joseph C. Harsch, said he was in England al the outbreak of war and was in a position to know the extent to which public opinion “was ahead of the Government.” Since Britain’s entry into the war (he added) was based on the deep and almost universal public conviction of the necessity of that step it is to be assumed that the'people will support the war to the limit of' their ability. The British people would never support a war entered into at the initiative of the Government without the knowledge of the public as to what was happening. The same is true of France. In neither country would public opinion be reliable in a war undertaken contrary to their basic convictions. In Germany the attitude of public opinion and the manner in which Germany entered the war fulfils all the conditions which in Britain or France would mean a bad and probably disastrous public morale —for in Germany war is almost universally unpopular, except among a small group of fanatical party leaders. Making it clear that the German people were deceived and deluded with hopes of another bloodless triumph, and that the outbreak of war was obviously to most of them an unexpected and unhappy shock, Air Harsch at the same time aligns himself with those who see no prospect of popular revolt in Germany. “While the enthusiasm for war is absent,” he observes, “there is an equal absence of any basis for political initiative which would seek to overthrow the regime as a means of ending war.” Many reasons appear for the submissiveness with which the people of Germany are lending themselves to the prosecution of a war which, as Mr Harsch says, is almost universally unpopular. In the first place, the Nazi regime has forged powerful weapons for its own protection—the State police, the S.S. —Hitler’s elite guard—and a system of espionage which extends its tentacles into every nook and cranny of community life. At the same lime, all organisations not controlled by the Nazi Party have been dissolved. To this, Air Harsch adds that there is something in the Nazi programme which has appealed strongly to a very large element in the population of the Reich and that history teaches that the German people are politically submissive and accept with less interest than possibly any other western nation whatever government happens to be above them. Most of their revolutions have amounted to “a new group at the top stepping in to fill the void left by an abdicating controlling group.” Weighty and significant as these facts are, they do not wholly exclude the possibility of the collapse or overthrow of the Nazi regime. What has to be determined is whether the Nazi dictatorship will be able to hold together, or to withstand attack, while leading the German nation through increasing deprivation and hardship to apparent disaster. It is admitted that for a time the Nazi regime built up its prestige by a series of easy triumphs over weaker opponents. Now, however, it has blundered into a conflict with powerful and resolute nations and in that conflict, in spite of the pact with Russia, it faces no other prospect than that of ultimate defeat. Taking account of other factors, amongst them Germany’s economic weakness, the shortage of essential supplies and the tremendous working strain imposed on her people it is by no means unreasonable to entertain the possibility that the Nazi dictatorship may be reduced by internal division and in other ways to a point of collapse, even if the people of Hie Reich continue in the main to be as submissive as they have thus far shown themselves to be. From time to time there are more or less plausible reports of serious dissensions in the upper circles of the Nazi oligarchy, particularly over relations with Russia. Obviously reports of the kind can only be tested finally by time and events, but excellent reasons certainly exist for the differences of opinion that are alleged to be dividing the Nazi leaders into opposed groups. It is not without a definite bearing on the situation now developing that in very much easier and less exacting days, Hitler, in order to maintain his authority and power, resorted to the wholesale murder of those who had been his closest associates. Whatever may he thought of the political docility of the German people, it is taking a great deal, for granted to assume that the Nazi dictatorship will continue to be a stable combination in the conditions of terrible strain its crimes have brought upon Germany and the world. THE ASCENDING SPIRAL. A.N announcement that an increase of 15 per cent, in the price to factories and shops of the output of all the New Zealand woollen mills took effect on Thursday is another and a somewhat staggering indication of the progress of monetary inflation in Iliis country. A rifling tendency to higher prices and one which tends Io operate with cumulative effect, no doubt is unavoidable in war time, but in this country an unwise overexpansion of credit had already done much to set the process of inflation in motion long before the war opened. Borrowing by the Government to finance works which have made little immediate addition to the output of saleable goods accounted largely for a net. expansion of bank credit between the end of May, 1938, and October. 1939, of £24.5m. The effect of this expansion is seen both in the reduction to a low level of oversea funds and in a lowering of the purchasing power of the New Zealand pound, accentuating the inflation iwliich would in any case have occurred in war conditions. 'faking account, with others, of the factor of heavv and increasing war costs the Dominion is now called upon Io bear, a comprehensive review of all aspects of internal financial and monetary policy becomes imperatively necessarv. Expenditure on public works is now to be brought, somewhat belatedly, under review, but a more drastic curtailment of this expenditure than is yet contemplated officially may prove to be inevitable. The question of the extent to which the position may be stabilised by internal borrowing, which would call on real savings, also demands serious investigation. Purposeful action without delay is so obviously called for that the step lately taken of postponing the next, meeting of Parliament must be regarded, as decidedly ill-judged.