The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1941. ANOTHER ENEMY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 121, 24 May 1941, Page 8

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

SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1941. ANOTHER ENEMY

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

It is very hard for British people j to think of France as an enemy country. Memories cannot be blotted out in a day, and in thousands of homes in New Zealand alone there are cherished memories associated with France, with tne defence of France against the Germans. That Frenchmen should now be led to join with Germans against Britain—against Britain, with whom France entered the war against Germany, and without whose assent she swore never to make a separate peace—is a development almost incredible. Yet the incredible is happening, and to a considerable extent has already happened. Perhaps it would have been better if the British Government had faced the fact before, the fact that the "collaboration" of France (or any other country) means, and cannot but mean, the Nazis being what they are, the enslavement of that country's people and the robbing of its resources for German purposes. That has now been recognised and clearly stated by the Foreign Minister, Mr. Eden, who on behalf of the Government has warned the Vichy rulers of the consequences of their actions. Those consequences, if the warning is not heeded, are painful for British people to contemplate, but they seem now inevitable. Britain is fighting for survival. It was Admiral Darlan who, broadcast to the French people seeking their support of his "deal" with Hitler. Darlan, who has done what Laval tried to do months ago, said that France would retain her fleet and her empire, and that Hitler had not asked France to declare war on Britain. In what sense the French are likely to retain their empire we may judge from what is happening in Syria. If Hitler did not ask for a declaration of war he had very good reasons. Why should he seek to make France a technical belligerent when he can have his way without the formality? Besides, he can hope that the development of events will do what' his propaganda has never done turn the French people strongly against Britain. He wants them to blame Britain, not Germany, for their plight. Darlan's announcement that the French fleet would be retained suggests—and the defection of a prominent French officer in Syria supports the suggestion—that the Vichy group are by no means sure of their supporters. Hitler would be quick to see that the French fleet, idle in its ports, but, because of the doubt surrounding it, keeping a part of the British Mediterranean fleet watching it, is of greater use to Germany than it would be if it put to sea, failed to fight and got itself destroyed. However that may be, British policy now is to "take account of the acts of Vichy," as distinct from Vichy's words. After Darlan's Berlin "deal" there can be no other safe criterion.