FEAR WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1938, Page 8

FEAR WAR.

EUROPEAN STATES.

DEFINITE UNDERCURRENT.

BRITISH FACTORIES SUSY.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHE IS TCHURCH, this day.

The people of the smaller countries in Europe realise that in the event of their being attacked they cannot rely on outside assistance. Therefore, they are arming. In most European countries there is a definite undercurrent of fear.

Mr. E. W. Hullett, chief chemist at the Wheat Research Institute, gained these impressions during a nine months' tour abroad.

There was evidence of preparations for war in Holland, he said in an interview, and Denmark appeared to fear Germany.

''The people of England are afraid of the possibility of air attacks, but probably that fear is general in most European countries," he added. "English people I met considered that we in New Zealand had an advantage in that we were unlikely to bo subject to such attacks.''

While in England Mr. Hullett vi-ited a number of factories, all of which were working to capacity. Perhaps it was a significant indication of the policy of rearmament that some factories were finding it difficult to acquire certain machine tools. The principal of one linn had been informed that lie would have to wait two years for a special tool. Mr. Hullett said f that he had also heard it said, but he could not confirm the statement, that English factories were being mobilised for defence.

From conversations he had with educated Germans, he gained the impression that the German people regarded fhe alliance with Italy as a matter of convenience. On the other hand, the Germans excused the acquisitive policy of the Japanese and Italians on the ground that they were virile people, and therefore they must expand. Might was right, according to their dictum.

'1 he millers in Germany were obliged to store seven or eight weeks' supply of wheat as part of the policy of preparedness fur war. They were also instructed in methods of clearing wheat and flour "f poison gases in the event of air attacks.

While the people of Germany seemed to feel that things were better "now than before Hitler gained power, the business man found the rigid Governmental control very irksome. This control was so firm that many businesses were finding it difficult to carrv on.