EUROPEAN SITUATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 155, 14 April 1936, Page 4

EUROPEAN SITUATION.

NO EARLY DANGER OF WAR. MR 'STERLING’S IMPRESSIONS. (Special to the “Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, April 13. “Though the European situation as it has been developing calls for extremely careful handling, there is no immediate danger of hostilities,” said Mr H. H. Sterling, chairman of the Railways Board before it was abolished, who returned to Wellington in the Maunganui from Sydney to-day after a long tour abroad. It seemed, to him that fundamentally the position in Europe resolved itself into the way in which Germany and France viewed each other. He did not think either nourished any feeling of aggression toward the other, but each seemed to entertain a decided fear of what-the other might do, or be aiming at doing, and in the case of Germany there was also an impulse new running strongly to obliterate everything that seemed to derogate from the equality of Germany with other great nations of the world.

Mr Sterling said that in Germany lie had been particularly impressed by signs of the high state of national efficiency and by .the very definite feeling of friendliness displayed on every hand toward British subjects. He had confirmed his own experience in this hv conversations with many British people who had visited Germany on business and pleasure in, recent years. The Labour Oorps into which the conscript youths of Germany weie drafted were observed by Mr Sterling with much interest. It was decidedly intriguing, he said, to see groups of these youths marching along country roads singing and carrying spades and other implements of cultivation, instead of rifles and bayonets. He thought that if this policy were maintained it would ultimately have a very beneficial effect in the development of German national character. The reason for this lay m the fact that the training of the youth of the nation in the habits of discipline would have its basis in the psychology of construction rather than obstruction.