CRISIS IN EUROPE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12440, 29 August 1938, Page 3

CRISIS IN EUROPE

SINISTER MOTIVES SUDETEN GERMAN PARTY’S TACTICS 6 ERMAN PROCLAMATION London. Aug. 27 Events in the last 24 hours make it unmistakable that Europe is facing the most critical days since the Great AVar, says the Australian Associated Press. The opinion is growing that there are more sinister motives behind the Sudeten German Party’s continual dela.ring tactics than appear on the surface. Britain realises that the negotiations of Dr. Hodza, Czech Prime Alinister, are fast developing into a race against time. It is feared in official circles that every effort must he made to hasten a solution of the Sudeten problem before the Nazi Congress at Nuremberg in September, even if it means patching up the situation in order to remove the slightest cause for outside interference.

The gravity of the situation has been increased by the issue by the Henlein Party of a proclamation described by the Prague correspondent of the Daily Telegraph as “dangerous and defiant and issued for no other purpose than to provoke a conflict.”

The Sudeten Germans’ proclamation relaxing discipline is much deplored in official circles itt Loudon, which had welcomed the Czech Government’s conciliatory suggestion for a new basis for negotiations with the object of meeting the Sudeten Germans’ demands.

The Daily Telegraph’s Prague correspondent says the authorities know that the proclamation and a German demarche are closely connected.

The proclamation is part of a plan to provide an excuse for a German invasion. It is little less than a summons to civil war, and when a conflict is provoked an excuse for invasion would he found.

The report of the proclamation is described by the Berlin correspondent of the Times as the most sinister one received from Prague for some time. He sa\s that precisely such a development was feared by foreign observers. The situation now is so delicate that any serious incident in Czechoslovakia might have the gravest consequences.

The correspondent adds that it is reiterated in Berlin that British public opinion will not support more than peaceful intervention in Czechoslovakia. It is on this that many people in Germany base their outlook.

There is no doubt that the situation is more tense than at any time since the dispute began, says the Prague correspondent of the Times. The Henlein Party’s proclamation drew a stern broadcast warning from the Czech Government, declaring that the signatories had assumed an unauthorised role and the proclamation was a violation of the law. Anyone endangering peace under the cloak of the proclamation would meet with most energetic police measures.