COLONIAL QUEST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 128, 13 March 1939, Page 8

COLONIAL QUEST.

HERR HITLER’S EXPERTS. NAZIS ADOPT NEW LINE. . LONDON, March 2. Desiring a first-hand account of conditions in'Germany’s former colonies, ' Hitler is sending an exploratory mission to Africa to report on every aspect of colonial life, savs the “Daily Herald,” Ho is personally supervising the selection of experts, whose headquarters will be either in Libya or Abyssinia. - The mission is also regarded as a‘ preliminary step to the reorganisation of the German Army for possible colonial ( purposes. General Ritter von Epp, Governor of Bavaria, and head of the Nazi colonial organisation, iri a speech to party officials at Wurzburg (Bavaria), reopened Germany’s colonial campaign, which has been dormant for some weeks. He took a new line by not referring specifically to Germany’s pre-war colonies, but by demanding equality for Germany with other nations as a matter, of principle. From this, observers infer that Germany’s claims are no longer limited to her lost territories.

“We demand, as one of the leading civilised nations of the world,” said General von Epp, “a share in the coming planned distribution of world splice, which is necessary for the future of a nation of 80,000,000 people.” In an article in the “Volkische Beobachter,” the German Propaganda Minister, Dr. Goebbels, refers repeatedly to colonial claims. “Herr Hitler on January 30 (he says) raised the colonial question, but that did not cause nervousness, because it was generally known that Germany wants her colonies back, and is unwilling to alter her claims.” Referring to the formation of the British Colonial League, Dr. Goebbels says: “I do not mind the league’s political objections to returning the colonies, but its moral and human objections are blatant impudence. “The time when the world was divisible into ‘haves’ and ‘have npts’ has gone, and we do not intend to be permanently among the ‘have nots.’ ”