GERMANY’S MOTIVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1940, Page 5

GERMANY’S MOTIVES

0 IN ATTACKING NORWAY DISCUSSED BY LORD HALIFAX. ALLIED POLICY DURING & AFTER WAR. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. April 10. The Foreign Secretary, hord Halifax. was the speaker ;il a In iiclieon today in a series which lias been addressed by various Ministers on the country’s war effort. He dealt will) the deeper causes of the eonllict and the wide)- aims of lhe Allies. He began. however, with a reference in recent developments. The situation, he said, was obscure, but it was clear that the whole of Denmark had been occupied by German troops. Norway had been attacked and part of her territory occupied. Norway had been assured by the Allies of full aid and that they would fight the war to its end in association with her. Regarding a report that Norway was prepared to negotiate with the German Government, he said: “I do not know whether the report is well founded. but if it were well founded I have no doubt whatever that the Allied Governments would only regard that action. as being taken under duress and that it would in no way whatever affect our determination to resist on behalf of a powerless Norway both the effect for Norway of this brutal exhibition of violence and for ourselves an extension of German strategic power on the North Sea and the Atlantic which it would be impossible for this country to accept.”

IN ATTACKING NORWAY

After assuring his audience that powerful British naval forces operating in the waters adjacent to Norway were not idle, though he could not yet reveal anything. Lord Halifax went on to try' to discover the motive of opening up flic war in Scandinavia. He thought it might well be the result of some internal weakness in Germany of which in Britain they were not perhaps wholly aware. Certainly it was not likely to be of unmixed advantage to Germany. A WORD TO NEUTRALS. Those events wore of a kind which were liable to happen if neutral Slates were not prepared to ask in time for the help they so often asked for when it was all too late to render it cfi’cctively, and if they did not realise in time that in a world where German assurances proved worthless it was to their ultimate and essential interest to stand together. Recalling that lite non-aggression pact with Denmark was valid for 10 years, that it was signed only 10 months ago. and that Norway had gone very far to accommodate Germany, he emphasised that it was now clear that neither non-aggression pacts nor absence of provocation were of the least avail against Germany if German policy demanded otherwise. Lord Halifax strongly denied, and cited Professor Koht (the Norwegian Foreign Minister) in support of his denial, the German assertion that the Allies intended to occupy Norway. He insisted also that the German preparations were so elaborate as to prove that the operation was planned in advance of the Allied mine-laying which the Nazis claimed to have provoked it. and added that even when viewed as having been provoked by Allied measures in Norwegian waters, world opinion would recognise as an unreasonable reprisal an action of which the minimum purport was the destruction of the independence of two more countries.

MAD DOG POLICY. The truth was that in the face of this kind of action by Germany no country which was not in a position to defend itself was safe. If anything had been required to stiffen British and French resolution, then Germany’s new mad dog act would have supplied it by making it plain once more that on the issue of the war hung the fate not only of the States actually at war but of all Stales which loved liberty and wished to preserve their independence. These events must also, he believed, have extinguished the last hopes of those few who had not before entirely despaired of the Nazi Government proving willing to co-operate to find a basis for a reasonable peace. “There is>. no one. as far as I know, in this country, or in France who wants the war to continue for an unnecessary day.” he continued, "but if we are to judge by plain facts we must conclude that even before this latest outrage people were deceiving themselves who thought that the present German Government would over be disposed to make the kind of peace that could be justified before the conscience of the world." Dealing further with the Allied aims. Lord Halifax said there was nothing either to dishonour or impair the selfrespect of a Germany which was prepared to take her place in good faith in the European family of nations and extend to others the same right to live that she claimed for herself and no longer so acting either within or without Germany as to dishonour the German name and make the word of the German Government something the word could not trust. “HIDEOUS PHILOSOPHY.” While Nazism reigned, “it is plain that we are fighting a new and very hideous philosophy which repudiates every principle that underlies civilisa-

ticn as we know it. and which has been imposed on a great people under the cloak of national renaissance by a gang of men who are completely devoid of scruples and imbued with a profound lust of power. They have been engaged in turning the Germans into machines and in eliminating all the humane qualities fostered by the family and by the Christian Church, and that seems to me to bo precisely Hie mentality of the great destroyers of history that emerged from areas in Europe impervious to the civilising influence of Rome." On the other hand, the Allies stood for positive and creative force and for the defence of values without which there was no hope of human progress. All energies and efforts of Britain and France were being increasingly directed without stint to the one end. victory, and in Lord Halifax’s judgment the mighty machine thus being created must in the end prove irresistible. RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. Passing references occurred in the speech to consultations at the Foreign Office on the Balkan situation and to Russia. Relations with Russia must be considered, the Foreign Secretary thought, not solely against the bac<ground of the Soviet's wanton attacks of Poland and Finland, but rath - r i:i the light of what must remain the Allies' principal objective, namely, the defeat of Germany. It followed that the future of those lelations must depend. and ought to more than anything else, upon the degree of effective help that Russia might, for whatever reason. r.vish to give Germany.

Regarding south-eastern Europe, he said he need not emphasise the abiding interest of the Allies in those countries or their desire to see them preserve their liberty. Lord Halifax impressed on his audience the far-reaching significance of the declaration after the sixth meeting of the Supreme War Council by which the British and French Governments undertook to continue joint action after the war to effect reconstruction of international order, ensuring liberty and respect for law and peace. He said that the history of the last twenty years might have been different if a similar undertaking had been given after the last war.

He envisaged the great conception behind the Anglo-French co-operation. "We have between our nations a living union.” he said. "Here. I think and trust, may be found a solid foundation, built into rock and not built upon sand, from which may spring true collective security, and I hope others who are like-minded with Fiance and ourselves upon elements of European life will be led to join what is becoming a close partnership for mutual benefit and mutual protection."