BEHIND THE CABLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 83, 7 April 1936, Page 6

BEHIND THE CABLES.

MARCH TO THE RHINE. TOO MANY FOREIGN CRISES. (By J. A. MULGAN and G. S. COX.) LONDON, March 14. Newspaper posters bearing the words "Germany Marches Into the Rhineland appeared on the streets of London just as the shops and offices were closing at lunch time on Saturday last and workers were hurrying off to their football or golf. The reaction of public opinion to the news was definitely pro-German. Germany was acting within her own borders, it was felt. "Why should we object to a man walking in his own back garden?" was the way one man put it in a bus. that afternoon. Hitler had not. like Mussolini, carried war into another country. And he had offered to come back to the League. True, he had broken a treaty, but there was a widespread feeling that the Versailles provisions which set up the demilitarised zone were unfair. These feelings found expression in the leading articles of almost every newspaper on Monday morning. Only the "Daily Worker," the Communist paper, stood against our holding out the hand of friendship to Germany. For the first time for years papers which had been vigorously opposed on foreign affairs were speaking with the nne voice. The French attitude came, therefore, as a complete surprise. And with even greater surprise did people learn, as the week went on, that a section of influential British opinion was moving round to the French view, which was, briefly, that Germany, having broken a treaty, could not be negotiated with until she took her troops out of the Rhineland. Mr. Winston Churchill, who has long been known for his fears on the question of German rearmament, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, the negotiator of Locarno, and Sir Samuel Hoare, were all found by the end of the week to support the French move for some action to stop treaty breaking before it was too late, and before Europe found itself in a state in which no country's word was trusted. Sir Robert Vansittart, permanent head of the Foreign Office, is also widely believed to b& opposed to accepting Germany's action. He is well known for his pro-French leanings, and is said to have been the real author of the Hoare-Laval peace plans. Belgium Open to Attack. The fact that Belgium is exposed to the possibility of easy attack from Germany is another factor which public opinion came to recollect during the week, and finds a definite appeal in a country which fought the Great War on the cry of supporting "gallant little Belgium." To-day the League Council meets at St. James' Palace. What decisions it will make will be known long before this is printed. But even at this late hour in the week British public opinion refuses to regard the situation as bringing the likelihood of war. Despite photographs in the newspapers of French troops marching near the frontier, and long columns of supply lorries rolling towards the fortifications, there is little of the tension which one felt in the atmosphere last autumn. There is a certain weariness in the public mind about foreign affairs and their many crises. The resolute pro-League feeling has been allowed to sag, though it is still strong. The Government, since the Hoare-Laval peace scheme, has been regarded as a luke-warm supporter of collective security by an increasing number of people. On the other hand, the Labour party, judged from the pettiness of Mr. Attlee's speech when Sir Samuel Hoare resigned, is not likely either to give much courageous and intelligent leadership in foreign affairs. One cannot, indeed, help noticing an increasing tone of fatalism in the attitude of the ordinary man towards the chances of avoiding, or not avoiding, war. On all sides it is a common thing to hear people discussing what they will do when a war comes. It was not by chance that Hitler announced the reoecupation of the Rhineland on a Saturday. All his chief pronouncements—the leaving of the League in 1933, the "purge" of June 30, 1934, the restoration of conscription in the spring of last year, were all made

about mid-day on a Saturday. At this time Government Departments are on the point of closing for the week-end, politicians are often in the country, and counter-action is accordingly delayed. Moreover, Hitler probably took Lloyd George as his model in this matter, as in so many other points, of pyopaganda. (He devotes in "Mein Kampf" great space to "Ll.G.'s" propaganda during the Great War.) Lloyd George said that Saturday mid-day is ideal for a statement because it gets the headlines in the papers on Saturday evening, Sunday and Monday morning. Hitler's Oratory, Over the radio last Saturday one- gained a very vivid and exciting sense of watching history; hearing history in the making. Hitler's speech to the Reichstag was clearly heard in London. One could follow his voice, rising to a vehement, almost hysterical, pitch as he denounced Bolshevist Russia, or acclaimed "the restoration of Germany's honour." Punctuating his remarks were the "Heils" and clapping *of the brown-shirted deputies. At the close came the sentimental but catching lilt of the "Horst Wessel" song, the Nazi J anthem, followed by the more sonorous I "Deutschlaiul Über Alios."

Compared to Hitler, the voice of the Freneli Premier, broadcasting his reply on Sunday, was sombre, and his remarks lacking in passion, though there, was no doubt about their definiteness, or the determination with which he uttered them. Later on Saturday afternoon a description of the troops marching into the Rhine towns was broadcast. The ring of boots on the roadway at Cologne and the blare of the military bands gave a vivid impression of the scene. They brought to my mind a day two years a'jo when I stood beside the Hohenzollern Bridge over which these troops were now marching, and talked to a fair-headed German woman, who, to my astonishment, knew all about Wanganui. Two soldiers in the Army of Occupation who were billeted at her home just after the war came from Wanganui, and they had taught her English. Underfed or Badly Fed. Over-shadowed by events in Europe, an event in home affairs of first-rate importance lias occurred during the week. Sir John Orr, the famous Scottish authority on nutrition, has produced a report into the food, health and income of the people of Britain. Half the people of the country are underfed or inalfed, he declares. Milk, fruit, vegetables and eggs are not consumed in anything like adequate quantities. It is not that people eat the wrong food, but that millions of them cannot afford the right food. Boys at Christ's Hospital, a big public school, are on the average five inches taller than working class boys of the same age. To cure this, the country should spend £130,000,000 more a year on food. Much of this would be got back by a decrease in the expenditure on curing sickness. Sir John Orr has the support of many leading men, including Professor Julian Huxley, who has been waging a controversy in the columns of "The Times" for some weeks past in support of cheap food for the masses and more free milk in schools. Should their policy ever be adopted the gain for Xew Zealand would be immense. We could gain a larger share of the market for meat, butter and cheese, for British producers would turn to growing the vegetables and fruit and producing the milk, for which there would be a greatly increased demand. A Final Note. —Oxford's pride in the accession of Edward VIII. to the throne brought forth this headline in an undergraduates' magazine: "Magdalen Man Makes Good."