A LOP-SIDED PROTEST.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1940, Page 4

A LOP-SIDED PROTEST.

gOMETIIING of a tangle of detail evidence has developed in regard to the. Altmarck incident, notably in the Norwegian denial that (lie German ship called at any Norwegian port. Looking at all the visible facts, however, Norway cuts rather a poor figure in her angrily-worded protest to Britain and in her foolish demand that the British Government should retuim the released prisoners and apologise. Presumably the Norwegian authorities would be terribly embarrassed if Britain should accede to that demand, for, unless they were prepared definitely and directly to violate their neutral duty, they could then do nothing else than forthwith release the prisoners once again. The commanding feature of the situation is that Norway is making far more noise over Britain’s technical violation of Norwegian neutrality than she has made over the piratical destruction by Germany of a whole fleet of Norwegian ships and the murder of many members of their crews. The only conclusion possible is that Norway is protesting to Britain because she feels it safe to do so, and has withheld, or very greatly minimised, the vastly more emphatic protest she should on the merits of the case have addressed, to Germany. . That Britain, in this affair, technically infringed Norwegian neutrality is not to be denied. In doing so, however, Britain inflicted no tangible injury on Norway and, indeed, did nothing more than Norway (would have been bound to do foj’ herself had she been prepared to honour her obligations as a neutral. The failure of the Norwegian Government Io carry out its plain duty appears even in the statement to Parliament of the Foreign Minister, Mr Kohl, lie said, for example, that:— As the naval authorities at Bergen did not think everything was properly clear, another Norwegian warship met the Altmarck north of Bergen. The Altmarck then refused an inspection “with full rights.” If Mr Kohl ami his Government, really believe that, an armed belligerent ship traversing neutral, waters has full right, to “refuse an inspection,” it is rather difficult to see on what grounds they can object to the action taken by H.M.S. Cossack,