NAZI AIMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 282, 29 November 1938, Page 9

NAZI AIMS.

PUSH SOUTH-EAST.

More Ambitious Than Kaiser's Berlin-Bagdad Dream.

CONTROVERSY OVER DRIVE. LONDON, November 22. Controversy regarding the effect of Germany's trade drive in eastern Europe has not abated. Many view the move with undisguised alarm, but others are considerably less perturbed. Discussion of tlie problem takes a new turn in the leader page article in "The Times." A special correspondent examines the probable lines of Germany's new economic strategy, based on a" militant national campaign in which business and the nation are one. He points flut that Germany emerged from Munich as the dominant continental military and political power, capable of winning a commercial supremacy in certain areas more complete than it was before the war. The correspondent says it is hoped that the trade drive will divert Germany's top-heavy warlike economy to trade rather than to war. Yet undoubtedly the possession of Vienna and the liquidation of Czechoslovakia give Germany the opportunity to clinch the traditional Imperial policy by an eastward drive. It is necessary to realise that the Xazis have changed the capitalist structure so that the profit motive does not operate to the same extent as it does in Britain. Under State planning, incomes and profits are centrally controlled. Hence the entire economic system can be mobilised. Wider Challenge. This is the fruit of adversity and the struggle to rearm which caused Germany to conduct business under the control of Goering's four-year plan. It was created for military selfsufficiency, but has resulted in enormous developments and improvements of the nation's manufacturing capacity. Germany has no money to invest abroad, but she has plenty of skilled labour and technical knowledge. Unified control is capable of conceiving and carrying out vast expansionist plans while the people, hardened in face of difficulties, put up with unpleasant conditions without grumbling. The special correspondent, in a second article, describes how, across the watershed of Europe, will soon wind the Rhine-Maine-Danube canal, along which huge barges will move from Cologne towards Istanbul, while the Ruhr and Rhineland industries will be linked up with the Danube. ] They are the symbols of Germany's push south-eastwards, which is more ambitious than the Kaiser's BerlinBagdad dream. Undoubtedly the Balkans and the Danubian region almost rival Russia, the United States, or the British Empire, in the abundance of resources. Yet Germany regards them merely as stepping stones to adventures further eastward. It is for Britain to decide whether she can marshal commercial forces to meet the complementary rivalry. Otherwise the challenge may soon be offered in a wider field. CZECH SITUATION. QUESTIONS IN COMMONS. (Received 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, November 28. A number of questions on Czechoslovakia were answered in the House of Commons to-day. In reply to a question relating to the final frontier line which Germany and Czechoslovakia notified to the International Commission on November 21, Mr. R. A. Butler pointed out that it was not stipulated in the Munich agreement that the final adjustment of the frontier should be based on purely ethical grounds.

As the result of a final adjustment it was understood that the balance of several thousand Czechs, additional to 580,000, of which the Prime Minister had informed the House on November 1 would be included in German territory.

The text of the agreement on the right of option had not been received by Britain. As it had been reached by the German-Czechoslovak Commission as provided in the Munich agreement, no further reference to the International Commission at Berlin was required.

The Prime Minister told the House that he had no information regarding the threatened Polish invasion of Ruthenia, and recalled that the changes in the Polish-Czechoslovak frontier were made as a result of direct agreement between the Polish and Czechoslovak Governments. He had no new statement to make on the British guarantee to Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Butler told another questioner that the motor road acrose Czechoslovakia did riot fall under any provisions in the Munich agreement, and he was not able to say anything about its Ownership.