DEED LONG MEDITATED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 April 1940, Page 6

DEED LONG MEDITATED

Mr Chamberlain said that ever since the beginning of the war. Germany had attempted to dominate Scandinavia and control the political and economic policies of the Scandinavian States. “That pressure," he continued, "lias been steadily increasing, and; as is now well known. Germany claims the right to dictate policy." After recapitulating the reasons for the Allied decision 10 mine Norwegian territorial waters, the Prime Ministci observed: "At no time did the Allies contemplate any occupation of Scandinavian territory, so long as it was not attacked by Germany. Any allega-, lions by Germany to the contrary are pure inventions and have no foundation in fact." Mr Chamberlain related how ihe Danish frontier was forced at daybreak, and how, on the refusal of the Norwegian Government to surrender, fighting began in Norway. He referred to the German assertion that the invasion is a reprisal for Allied action in Norwegian waters, saying that this could deceive no one. "So elaborate an operation, involving simultaneous landings at a number of ports by troops accompanied by naval forces." he said, “requires planning long in advance and information'now coming in clearly indicates that it had already been planned and was already in operation before the Allies’ mines were laid in Norwegian waters. The facts of the German operations, which are becoming public property, suffice in themselves to prove what I have stated. Trondheim, which has been invaded by Germain armed forces this morning, is distant from the nearest German port, Cuxhaven, nearly 700' miles, and if an expedition had started immediately after the mine-laying began it could not yet have arrived.” ONLY SAFETY FOR NEUTRALS The Prime Minister recalled his prophecy at the end of the Russo-Finnish war that nothing would save Swedenand Norway but a determination to defend themselves and to join others ready to aid them. Since then, Germany had claimed the right to destroy neutral ships in the seas around Scandinavia. The Germans simultaneously had insisted on the strictest observation of the laws of neutrality where this conferred an advantage on Germany, as it did in Norwegian waters. The Allies, therefore, had decided thal they could not acquiesce indefinitely in this state of affairs and had laid minefields in Norwegian waters to prevent unhindered German traffic, while not interfering with normal Norwegian trade.