GERMAN COLONIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 7

GERMAN COLONIES.

British Peer Strongly Urge? Their. Return. EXPANDING POPULATION. LONDON, March 21. Declaring that Germany must have elbow room, Viscount Rothermere, in an article in the "Daily Mail," asks: "Can we sit for ever on the safety-valve of Germany's expanding population? "When the war started Britain and the Allies proclaimed a policy of no annexations. When .it ended they annexed all the German colonies and denied Germany's rights to have any, justifying this by the declaration that she was not civilised enough to be a colonial Power. Thus they deprived her of the sources of half her pre-war supplies and suppressed emigration under the German flag. It is useless to assure her that we recognise her claims to equality while we retain her colonies.

"Our material loss through returning Tanganyika, Togoland ancl the Cameroons to Germany would be insignificant compared with the value of such pledges of our good will. Germany needs a suitable outlet for her splendid body of young men formed under the discipline of the Hitler regime.

"Tanganyika is entirely fit for white farmers. We cannot expect a nation of he-men like the Germans to sit with folded arms under the provocations and stupidities of the Treaty of Versailles.

"When Germany has interests outside Europe she will be less likely to make trouble on the Continent. The sacrifice of 428,000 square miles of our colonial Empire of 2,000,000 square miles wqyjd be a small price to pay for distracting Germany from projects of revenge."