Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1940. HITLER SEEKS NEW ALLIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1940. HITLER SEEKS NEW ALLIES.

r £O a considerable extent the nature of the. agreement Hitler is said to have reached with the Vichy Government remains a matter of speculation. What is clearly established is that the Nazi dictator is making strenuous efforts to offset what is described fairly as the first major defeat he has suffered—the smashing by' the Royal Air Force of his preparations to invade Britain. In France he has found an instrument ready to Jus hand in. 31. Pierre Laval —a man declared to be ready for the sake of personal ambition to go to any lengths in betraying his own country. Last week it was reported the Vichy Government had rejected Nazi proposals conveyed and supported by i\l. Laval, but during the weekend it was announced that this friend of the enemies of his country was taking over the post of. Foreign Minister, presumably in addition to that of VicePremier which he already occupies. In the evidence it affords that 31. Laval more than ever dominates the Vichy Ministry, this news, at an immediate view, is as bad as it well could be.

It would obviously be unsafe to place much reliance on a report stating that the agreement the Petain Government has reached with Hitler is political and diplomatic only and does not relate to military aid. With 31. Laval exercising an increasing influence, there is every reason to fear that in the extent to which French military resources, can be placed at the disposal of the Nazis, that will be done. The fate of the remnant of the French fleet, of North Africa, with its air force, and of other vital factors thus becomes problematical. That 3larshal Petain and some of his colleagues are believed to oppose any military alliance with the Nazis is of small practical importance. The total achievement of these men has been to place their country much more completely at the mercy of the enemy than it need have been. It is too late for them now to attempt to set limits to the ignominy they have themselves imposed on their country. Some of them may be genuinely opposed to becoming the direct accomplices of Nazi gangsterdom, but they are directly associated with 'men who have no such scruples.

Hopes for the redemption of France from the bondage into which she has been betrayed—a condition absolutely and shamefully in contrast with that of Belgium, on whom the weight of military defeat and calamity has fallen at least as heavily—depend ultimately upon British victory. Meantime a definite danger appears that French military resources of various kinds, including bases, armaments and war material, may be made much more fully available than hitherto for use against Britain, and therefore against France herself. M. Laval and his associates no doubt are prepared also to go to all practicable lengths in placing French Morocco and other territories at the disposal of the Axis Powers. In this they will only be building upon the precedent set at Dakar.

Nothing is to be gained by refusing to recognise that in this way the difficulties and problems by which Britain is confronted in the war may be intensified, perhaps seriously. Account has to be taken also, however, of the extent, to which loyalty and patriotism still rule the minds of Frenchmen in their homeland and in the territories of the French Empire. Many millions of Frenchmen, it may be hoped, will be of one mind with General, de Gaulle and his colleagues of the Free French movement in holding null and void the carving up of the national heritage and in declaring any association, between. France and her mortal enemy to be sacrilege. It is not in doubt, that 31. Laval is intent on making France the accomplice, as well as the enslaved victim of Nazi gangsterdom, but whether he is destined to achieve any considerable measure of success in that almost incredibly base design has yet to appear.