DEFENCE AND DEFIANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 8

DEFENCE AND DEFIANCE.

Herr Hitler is to address the Reichstag on Monday, and the expectation is that he will make one of those declarations on foreign policy which the world has learned by experience to take seriously. Probably under the influence of that expectation, the Freneh Prime Minister has defined bluntly and forcibly the attitude of his Government to colonial claims, and he has secured a unanimous supporting vote from the Chamber of Deputies. In England Sir Samuel Hoare, a member of the "Inner Cabinet," in a speech the tone of which will be welcomed throughout the English-speaking world, has proclaimed the invincibility of the British Empire, and at the same time has denounced the " panic-mongers" who assume that war is inevitable. Both M. Daladier and Sir Samuel Hoare, it will be noted, are no longer speaking the language of appeasement; they are warning and defying any Power or group of Powers which threatens their countries' integrity. Meanwhile the Prime Minister of Australia, following a meeting of the Defence Council which was attended by Mr. Bruce, just arrived from London* has spoken of the danger of the outbreak of a world war " with tragic suddenness." He said that Australians must realise, " and realise quickly," that the trend of events in Europe and the East vitally affected them, and that " the peace which Australia has enjoyed for over 150 years is threatened." Mr. Lyons snid the same thing in December, and he was attacked on the ground that such apparently designed to stimulate recruiting, were exaggerated and unnecessarily alarming, and the pertinent comment was made that if they were true, then Parliament should not have adjourned, for four months, after they were made. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine an experienced Prime Minister making—and now repeating—such statements without a full sense of his responsibility. But if his confidential information justifies them there is sound reason, as the Leader of the Opposition contends, for summoning Parliament immediately.