SECRET WEAPON

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20915, 21 September 1939, Page 7

SECRET WEAPON

BRITAIN NOT ALARMED THREAT OF FRIGHTFULNESS HITLER’S UNEASY CONSCIENCE united Press Assn. —■Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 20 A reference by Hitler in his speech to a secret weapon does not worry the British Government. Herr von Ribbentrop several times mentioned that such a weapon existed, and it is believed British Secret Service agents have already discovered plans of the weapon, enabling the defence

chiefs to take effective counter-mea-sures.

The Daily Telegraph, in an editorial, says: “Hitler’s Danzig harangue betrayed, if not a conviction of sin, at least an uneasy consciousness that his attack on Poland was badly in need of justification, not only to the world, but to his own people. “His harangue holds a threat intended to make the flesh creep : ‘The moment may come when we will use a weapon which is not yet known, and with which we could not ourselves be attacked.’ ” The editorial adds: “Those who are alt war with Germany know they have to reckon with frightfulness. They will not be dismayed now, any more than they were 20-odd years ago.” Broken Promises If Herr Hitler had wished to inspire confidence in his word he should have been less reckless with his earlier promises. “Germany has no further territorial ambitions in Europe,” was an undertaking which has been broken too flagrantly and too often. Just as the Polish Government —which had done its best for six years to reach and maintain an understanding with Nazi Germany on a basis of good faith—was faced at last with the realisation that it had no choice but to capitulate or to fight, so neither Britain nor France, nor any other country, is to be deceived by fresh assurances, or fresh promises, or fresh renunciations, which the forsworn Nazi Chancellor may make.