Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1941. THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1941. THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.

♦ - - QNE of the'most, unpopular individuals today in Hie United States of America is Colonel Lindbergh, whose too obvious efforts on behalf of Nazi Germany have earned for him the contempt of the English-speaking races throughout the world. The evidence ‘which he gave before the American Foreign Affairs Committee at Washington recently, marks him down as an admirer of what Hitler and his Huns stand for. He may know .something about aerial navigation but in the fields of economics and polities his testimony is palpably incompetent and saturated with Hitlyrism. His assumption that a peace could be made which would give tolerable freedom to enslaved countries in Europe, with only Hitler’s discredited word as guarantee against a new and greater outbreak of gangsterism, has been exploded by the rejection by the Berlin Press of Senator Wheeler’s similar peace terms. The claim that because America lias found some sort of basis for. living with Soviet Russia it could be comfortable with a triumphant Triple Axis, displays an ignorance of political and strategic realities which the instinct of most Britishers as well as Americans, condemn. Ts expansionist, colonising Germany no different from hermit Russa? Is rich, industrially powerful Germany to be compared with poverty-stricken Russia, still struggling out. of a peasant economy? Could Germany, master of the gates to the Atlantic, dominating Africa and allied with Japan in the Pacific be regarded just the same by American naval power as Japanbordered Russia—if Britain no longer ruled the waves? Can a Nazi victory be contemplated so complacently either in its moral, political or economic effects? The economic war that the totalitarian States have been waging—and for which the short-sighted trade policies of Britain and America must, bear much blame—would make the United Stales an island in. a barter-dominated world, run for the advantage of the Triple Axis. Any economic life except that of a hermit would be on totalitarian terms. South America, for instance, would he dominated economically and forced to give Germany and Japan air and naval bases, and ruination would stare the people of the United States in the face. Lindbergh’s failure in his evidence to make any moral distinctions between democratic Britain, the home of freedom, and Nazi Germany, Ihe agent of terrorism, cruelty, treachery and intolerance and the oppressor of small countries, utterly disqualifies him as a person whose ideas can be given any weight to.

Potential German power should not be complacently under,estimated any more than the Balkan situation can be viewed at the moment with feelings of satisfaction by the supporters of the Allied cause. It is always well to be prepared to meet the worst, but the recognition of Germany’s strength should not cause defeatism. Rather should it spur the necessary effort io meet it. and overcome it so long as it is driven by an evil purpose. It is defeatism which considers that mechanistic might is the wave of the future, and fails Io see that moral might such as the British, the Greeks, the Binns and the Chinese have displayed really owns the future and must hold the reins of progress. Britain is spreading out her forces to meet the German aggression at. all points and while the outlook at the moment, may be causing ladings of anxiety to peoples of Allied countries we have the knowledge that the might of Britain and her allies is increasing; that while there may be terrible lighting in flu* Balkans, and Germany may make some temporary progress the solid, stubborn characteristics of th' l British will triumph in the end. The Nazis have constantly to reckon with the possibility of spontaneous revolt by tin 1 peoples they an 1 oppressing, and once the war is going definitely against the linns then the haired ol the conquered races of Europe will give expression in such lashion as may make the dark’ days of the Erench Revolution seem a mere nothing in the toll taken of life. In the Balkans, Germany must always reckon with the probable intrigue of their Soviet “Iriends. AIos"ow may not. at the moment be able to say “thus far and no furl her. but the time will surely come when Soviet Russia will lake her pound of flesh should Germany squeeze her too hard, in the dark, days that may be ahead in the Balkans.