The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1937. GERMAN COLONIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 6

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

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1937. GERMAN COLONIES.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that use can do.

"While he was in New Zealand, Lord Elibank's relations with the Government were hardly such as to make him an authority upon its attitude towards Germanism in the Pacific, and while he made other contacts, when he says that New Zealand would not feel very strongly about the return of Samoa or Australia about the return of New Guinea to Germany he speaks without authority. There are assumptions in his letter to "The Times" which cannot reasonably be accepted. Without definitely saying so, he infers that a European war could be averted by satisfying Germany's overseas ambitions. His suggestion that Japan would be agreeable to the establishment of German bases across the line of her southern and eastern trade routes, and that Holland would willingly surrender her territorial rights in New Guinea, in the bare hope that Germany might thus be satisfied, is a tribute to his optimism, but is out of step with the march of events since the war. At no time has Germany even' suggested that a colonial empire would satisfy her; the "Drang nach Osten" cry has been no idle one; aspirations for expansion to the eastward and south-eastward have not been concealed at any stage. To suggest that these ambitions could be satisfied by the return of a few colonies implies a refusal to face the irrefutable evidence of incidents in the Saar, on the Rhine, in Danzig and in , the denunciation of various sections of the Treaty of Versailles. The agitation for the return of the colonies has gone through curious phases. At first a matter of indifference, it blazed into a nationwide demand which inflamed opinion throughout Germany and led to an insistent cry for the immediate revocation of the mandates. Then the agitation died down, but was renewed later with increasing vehemence. Last October it was suddenly suppressed, and orders were given for all references to the clamour to cease. Next month, while the repression order was maintained, high Nazi officials made it clear that no change of policy was involved, and Goering, Goebbels and Dr. Schacht all made emphatic demands for territory overseas. Dr. Schacht's claims were based on the arguments brought forward in the initial of land within the Republic, overpopulation and need for raw materials, saying that Germany must expand or explode. The history of colonisation proves eonclusiyely enough the fallacy of these but they will be accepted by Germany, and the memorandum which is now being prepared for presentation to the Powers will probably inflame the nation anew. Dr. Schacht has made it clear that Germany will be satisfied with nothing'but the possession of territory, and As force is probably the one means by which she can obtain this, |tiie danger of the new demand is apparent. !/,•' Japan has spent a very large amount of money on her mandated island* north of the Equator; she Will not surrender them; thfey are, too valuable for advanced bases in the event of. trouble anywhere in the Pacific, and they have some good harbours. It is apparent that Australia "' and New Zealand will have to rely on their own resources/ for protection if war should come; thai is probably the best contribution they will, be able to make to Empire defence. It would be of no great assistance to either nation if wellequipped naval bases owfned by a foreign Power were within a few days' steam, while the value of the Singapore base, to which bath •have contributed, would be . very materially reduced. Nobody is particularly enamoured of the Samoan mandate, but the cost of administration is part of the price of safety, and as such it is accepted. Similarly, Australia has done much developmental work in New Guinea, and there is no desire in the Commonwellth for a base at Rabaul. To suggest that a treaty could prevent one being established there, or that Germany could be induced to make an adequate contribution to world pacification, is to shut one's eyes to the history of the last three yea?s.