GERMANY’S LOST COLONIES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 99, 21 January 1936, Page 8

GERMANY’S LOST COLONIES

Germany’s leaders have not been slow to exploit the questions raised by Italy in her dispute with the League of Nations in regard to her colonial aims in Abyssinia, which she is now pursuing by armed invasion. Dr. Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, refers in his latest utterance to Germany’s lack of colonies and raw materials, and declares that the time will come when a demand will be made for the return of the lost territories. “Others,” he says, “don't need the colonies they have taken from us.” The German colonies, of course, were not taken by others, but were placed under the trusteeship of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, which delegated the administration of these to various mandatory Powers. The principle of this trusteeship is that the colonies in question belong to the former native ow,ners, and that in certain classes of mandates these are to revert to them if and wh.en they can show that they can administer them on their own responsibility. A case in point is Iraq, which now has its own Government. Palestine will also become a self-governing State when the Jews and the Arabs have composed their differences and given evidence that they can live peaceably together. From the German point of view this system of trusteeship is a polite fiction, covering acts of seizure intended to be • permanent. In one sense this is true of certain mandated territories, the natives of which are unlikely ever to be fit to govern themselves. A mandatory Power can be relieved of its trusteeship at its own request —as France did with Syria—or deprived of it if its administration has been bad. Apart from these contingencies, the position really is that a mandatory Power installed in an ex-enemy colony whose people are unsuited for self-government, can remain in undisputed possession for an unlimited time. It would, obviously, be impracticable for- the mandatory Powers in these cases to change round, «u to speak, as in a game of musical chairs. If German}' returned to the League of Nations it would be competent for her to apply for a share in the mandates, and in submitting her application she could argue her case for territoria 1 expansion and supplies of raw materials. Whether she would succeed is another matter. This question of territorial expansion is beginning to loom up as one of the most difficult and delicate problems the League of Nations has yet had to handle. It will have to be faced sooner or later, if there is to be peace in Europe.