GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 174, 25 July 1928, Page 6

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.

The movement in favour of political union between Germany and Austria is said to be gathering strength rapidly in both countries. The fraternisation between all branches of the German-speaking peoples at the Schubert festival in Vienna is symptomatic of the strong tendency toward Teutonic consolidation and unification now manifesting itself in Central Europe. And this movement is strong and influential because it is based on natural and rational impulses and aspirations. After the war Europe was supposed to* be resettled on nationalist lines, and by every principle of nationalism Austria has a right to political union with Germany. This, of course, assumes that both parties desire union, and of this there can be no possible doubt. Austria has been reduced to a particularly deplorable condition by loss of territory, for Vienna, once one of the most splendid capitals in the world, is now poverty-stricken and decadent through the inability of the country to support it. The objection to the proposed union—that Germany would become as powerful and dangerous as before the war—is no valid argument against j the demand for national unity, supported as it I is by the repeated declarations and professions lof the Allies themselves.