Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1933. GERMANY AND COLONIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 255, 9 August 1933, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1933. GERMANY AND COLONIES.

It is only natural that Dr. von Lindequist’s tour of the former German colonies in Africa should arouse great interest in the territories concerned. The visitor says that his tour is a purely personal one, but he admits that he will discuss his impressions with “friends of the German colonial movement.” A feature that intensifies the interest and fosters speculation, especially in regard to Tanganyika territory, is the fact that the visit so quickly succeeds the arrival of many Germans from South-west Africa following the adoption of anti-Nazi measures and the recent formation of the German Association of East Africa, accompanied by the creation of Nazi “ cells.” Questioned regarding the matter of administration, Dr. Lindequist said: “Germany has a population of 60,000,000 and no colonies. France with a smaller population has nearly half the world. I see no harm in German political associations if they are peaceful and do not interfere with anybody, as at present.” In Berlin school children daily visit the colonial exhibition, where their teachers tell them that jealous rivals, though surfeited with colonial possessions, stole valuable territories. Posters emphasise that Germany has no colonies, while others, including diminutive Portugal, have vast overseas possessions. These arguments are on all fours with the contentions raised from time to time by other advocates of Germany’s claims for colonial possessions. The plea cannot be sustained on the score of necessity for expansion. The density of Germany s population is far below that of many countries and scarcely half that of England. Her colonies have never been used as outlets for population. When Germans go abroad they prefer to go to settled lands. Of 125,000 who left the Fatherland in five years before the war only 150 made homes under the German flag. It has been asserted that Germany s return to the ranks of colonial powers is a matter of right and honour, but with the treatment that was meted out to the natives in the colonies when were held by Germany, and the ruth" lessness of the present Nazi methods at home to influence them, the Powers are not likely to alter, for a while yet, at any rate, the decision that was reached when the Treaty of Versailles was drafted.