CHANGE IN AIM ?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 286, 3 December 1938, Page 8

CHANGE IN AIM ?

GERMANY SINCE MUNICH. PEACE AND TIME NEEDED. (By WALTER DURANTY.) WARSAW, Xovember 4. Arbitration in Vienna of the future frontiers of Hungary and Czechoslovakia has been welcomed in Poland as giving Hungary the chief population centres of JRuthenia. The Poles were afraid that (lermany might hold Kuthenia under Czechoslovak control with the later purpose of using it as a springlniard tor I'an-l krainian action directed either against Poland or the Soviet Union, or both. Much of the mixed population of Kuthenia is more Ukrainian than anything else. In Poland there are some live million Ukrainians, none of whom loves Poland unduly. Across the Soviet border there are another Z~i million 1 krainians, some of whom might lie suspected of preferring independence as the centre of a pan-I krainian State to membership of a Soviet Socialist federation. In Berlin, too. there has 'long existed an influential Ukrainian committee and there is some reason to believe that prior to Munich the (icriuan leaders did consider the utilisation of I krainian nationalism for their own purposes. Hence Polish apprehensions regarding an autonomous Kuthenia. that is Ukrainian, under < ierma u auspices. Instead, by allowing Hungary to recover such towns and coinninniIca I ions a- I'utiienia possesses, the (iermaiis have effectively neutralised that potentially t roil'ile-ma k ing country. Which is immensely significant, because it means that (iermany no longer wishes to make trouble or fish in troubled waters. The Fish Has Been Caught. 1- ntil Munich the threat of war and war's alarm and what has now Itecome the. "racket"' of stirring up nationa'l minorities to scream for self-determination was one of HenHitlers major cards in the international game. Hut Munich changed all that. It suddenly tra tii- tunned Cciniany from a ''have-not" Power which had nothing to lose bv strife and contusion, and much to gain, to a "have" Power, which needs time and trani|uillitv to digest and develop not merely what she lias already swallowed but the far greater possibilities which lie at prc-cnt before her. That and no other is the meaning of the Kuthenian settlement. It declares to those who have ears to hear that (lermany henceforth wants peace. I'obert Browning mice wrote a poem about a poor fisherman who became a priest and iiinvl'll ii p 111 rough the <'a t ho) ie hierarchy. When he became bishop ho took the net of a humble fisherman as his eoat of-arnis and retained it when lie reached the office of cardinal and prince of the Church. Kilt when he finally achieved hi- goal and was chosen Pope lie replaced that simple net by a more grandiose armorial escutcheon. When they a~ked him why. lie replied. "Mv net has served its purpose—it has caught: fish.'' Well, (iermany has caught her fish also, and the lish's name is Mittel-Kuropa. which will lie worth more to llerinaiiv in the next year, the next live years, the next ten years, than any former colony or even the conquest, if that were possible, of the Soviet Ukraine. And so much easier for (ieriuaiiy. so natural, normal and economically sound. The Rumanians, who are nimblc-w it ted. appear to have understood this already, and hope to profit by their mental quickness. They arc not flustered by hiolisoiindiug word~ like "ficrman hegemony" or "(ierman Patrol of Kuropc." They. too. want peace and peaceful development, and do not much care whether the coat-of-arnis above them is a fisherman's net or a swastika. The rest of Kuropc. including Poland, still thinks in pre-Munich terms, and dreams romantic, dreams of political and financial combinations, deal* and pacts and tariffs which (iermany is determined to sweep away. As (iermany can ami will do localise she needs such a. clearance of post-Versailles rubbish in order to put into action her Mittcl-Kuropa.— (Copvright: X.A.N.A.)