The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News. The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1934. GERMANY'S LOST COLONIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News. The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1934. GERMANY'S LOST COLONIES.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the torong that needs resistance For the future in the distance, And the good that 'ice can do

Consistency lias never been a feature of the "Daily Mail," and now, after its demand

at the time of the framing of the Peace Treaty that Germany should be bled white, it

has suddenly discovered that Germany was unjustly deprived of her colonies, and is sponsoring a demand for their return. Nazi Germany evidently makes a greater appeal to Lord Rotlierinere than the Germany of Weimar. He has referred to the fact that part of the justification for not returning the German colonies was the belief that Germany was not civilised enough to be a colonial Power. Does this mean that he thinks she is

more civilised now under Hitler than under Rathenau, or even under the Kaiser? If tho

unfortunate natives were ill-treated in the days of Germany's colonial power, are they likely to be any better treated under a regime which persecutes all not of the purest Nordic blood?

The reference to the suppression of emigration under the German flag will not carry much weight. The Germans never did emigate to their colonies. These colonies had an area of 931,000 square miles and a native population of over 11,000,000. Yet the total white population was only 22,000. In some cases the Germans did civilising work, but there is plenty of evidence that their treatment of the natives was harsh and cruel, and there is no evidence to-day that, if these colonies were returned, the treatment of the natives would be other than it was before the Avar. It might, in fact, be worse, judging from the Nazi treatment of the Jews.

Had Germany remained a member of the League, and shown a desire to co-operate in the work, of Geneva, there would have been a much stronger case for the return of at least some of her colonies. Her only chance of getting some territory back is as a mandatory Power under the League. She would have had a good claim for the return of the Pacific Isles, north of the Equator, placed under the mandate granted to Japan, seeing that Japan left the League and so weakened her claim to hold a mandate. But now that Germany herself has also left, there is no reason why she should have territory that has been placed under League control. The mandated areas have shown no desire to return to German rule. They have prospered under the control of the Mandates Commission, and though the procedure of this Commission is capable of being improved in certain directions, yet the interests of the natives have been largely safeguarded, and public opinion can always be brought to bear on any case of real or alleged exploitation or ill-treatment, as was the case with the punitive expedition against the Bondel Hottentots, in what was formerly German South-west Africa.