Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1941. THE WAY OF “COLLABORATION.”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1941. THE WAY OF “COLLABORATION.”

T T must be regarded as of sinister significance that detail information is being withheld of the agreement with the Nazis in which Hie Vichy Cabinet “lias unanimously approved Hitler’s requirements in return for the recent concessions to Vicliv.” It is evil and not good thal shuns the light of day and the obvious explanation of the secrecy now being observed by Marsha! Petain and his colleagues is thal they are ashamed of the terms they have made with the enemy. The one detail meantime disclosed —that German planes have been allowed Io land in Syria—is a disturbing indication of what may follow.

Observing that the agreement is described in Vichy as a new step along the path of collaboration, the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Eden, has said that he finds it hard io believe that the French people

will be so false to their noble traditions as to work actively of their own free will for the German cause, and thus prolong the period of their own sufferings and postpone the day of their own liberation.

Unfortunately, however, it is not the inclination of the French people that is in .question, but thal of a body of men who have shown themselves unworthy—though their unworthiness may haw 1 appeared in varying degree—to speak and act for France.

As a French exile observed rccenlly: “Vichy is not free and therefore does net represent France. Paris is entirely under German control and nothing that comes out of Paris is anything but German.” it is in Paris and in P.erchtesgaden that arrangements have been made for the latest “step along the path of collaboration” and I hat this step has been approved unanimously by Vichy goes far to demonstrate that the only part of the Petain administration that really counts is its pro-Nazi wing—the wing which consists of traitors to France and Io the cause of human freedom.

Any doubts as to the justice of this opinion may be resolved by comparing the present policy ami status ol France with those of other countries which share with her the tragic late oi being overrun bv the Nazi hordes. In nearly every instance, the governments of these victims of Nazi aggression have preferred exile to submission, and all of them are in some fashion bravely continuing' the struggle for the liberation o! their homelands. It is true that the h’ree French movement, headed by General de Gaulle, is also a factor of no small importance in the struggle against Nazism, but this movement is stigmatised by the servile Vichy administration as treasonable. Frenchmen, claiming to speak with authority, have outlawed the Free French leader and his adherents. ’Phis is a state of affairs to which there is no parallel in Hie action and experience of other victims of Nazi aggression.

There is no possible justification for the policy of servility to the Nazis to which the Vichy administration as a whole aparently is now committed. At best this policy amounts to an aece])tanee of defeat and stands in ignominious contrast to the undimnied fortitude of nations which have suffered even greater misfortunes than France. One of the claims advanced by members and supporters of the Vichy Cabinet is that France was not adequately supported by Britain in meeting the Nazi onset. The sufficient answer to that charge is that Britain is gallant ly continuing the struggle in spile of the collapse of her principal ally, and with prospects today vastly brighter than in the hour of that collapse.

In any case, the policy of Vichy may lie adjudged finally and coiieliLstvely by comparing it with, for example, the policy of Holland. Ostensibly, .Marshal Petain and his colleagues are endeavouring to serve the interests of Prance, lint is il possible to claim that 1 ho people of the Netherlands are in any particitlar worse off than those of Prance because their ruler and Government preferred exile to submission and are now drawing unstintedly upon all the resources of the Netherlands empire in contributing to the struggle for liberation? France, like Holland, has a great overseas empire and like Holland, even with its homeland in enemy hands, might still have made a great contribution to the ultimate victory of the democracies. So far as it is shaped in Vichy, and by traitors in Paris and enemies in Berchtesgaden, however, the policy of France is in humiliating contrast even to that of little countries like Poland and (’’zechoslovakia. which have been bereft entirely of their territory and are exposed to the worst furies of Nazi savagery.

Nowhere do the men of Vichy stand more obviously and hopelessly condemned than in their craven plea that they are serving France by endeavouring to placate and serve the Nazis. The fate reserved for Prance by the Nazis, if they have their way, has been made plain on a thousand occasions by Hiller and others. As a reminder to his countrymen, IU. Henry Hauck, a well-known French writer now in England, recently quoted, in a broadcast, the words of Dr 'Walter Darre, Heich Minister of Agriculture. At a meeting of leaders of the Nazi Party. Dr Darre declared: —

We will destroy France ... In the new vital space we are creating we will introduce methods which are entirely new. All land and industrial property of inhabitants not of German origin will be confiscated without exception and distributed, first to members of the Nazi Party, then,to the soldiers. A new aristocracy of German masters will thus be created. This aristocracy will have its slaves, who will be German property. And when I say slaves do not take it for a figure of speech. We have in mind a modern form of slavery which we will establish because it is a necessary part of our mission.

Lest any of his listeners might lie tempted to look upon pronouncements like that of Darre as exaggerations, ,l\l. Hauck pointed mH that already Frenchmen had been driven out of Lorraine wilhonl any shadow of legality and their land given to Germans from Saxony. Whatever the “ new step along the path of collaboration ” which has been approved unanimously by the Vichy Cabinet may amount to in detail, it is (dear I hat it can be nothing else in its total ef'feel than a further contribution by Frenchmen to the enslavement of I he people of France.

INTERNAL LOAN CONVERSION.

/AN all grounds the local loan conversion proposals put forward on behalf of the Government by the Minister of Finance (Mr Nash) should commend themselves as worthy of acceptance and support. A fair oiler is made to holders of stock and at the same time the arrangements contemplated would do a good deal to clear up the immediate position where maturing debt domiciled in the Dominion is concerned and to leave an open field for such further borrowing as will be necessary for war purposes. The essential aim is to deal at once with all debt maturing during the probable duration of the war. so that there can be no further conflict, during the war period, between conversion operations and new flotations. The policy laid down incidentally should do something to establish safeguards against inflation.

All the more since war obligations are still extending indefinitely, the total problem confronting the Dominion where the conversion and progressive redemption of national debt is concerned is of formidable dimensions. The local conversion touches a comparatively small part of the total problem. At the first convenient and promising opportunity, however, an effort certainly should be made to approach in the case of debt domiciled overseas arrangements similar to those now proposed in regard to early maturing internal debt —arrangements, thal is to s;;.v, which will facilitate methodical and progressive redemption. Apart from the magnitude of our overseas indebtedness, now inevitably being increased by war expenditure, the position is accentuated by the fact that heavy masses of debt will be falling due for redemption within the next few years —a state of affairs that bears witness to a lack of foresight on the part of a succession of past financial administrators. A wholesale conversion of overseas debt, on terms providing for its redemption progressively and with reasonable expedition, appears to be the only hopeful method ot dealing with the position.