A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 54, 27 November 1937, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

War Guilt Before she will consent to return to the League of Nations, Germany, according to a British Bress report, wants the cancellation, among other things, of the war guilt clause. Closely allied with the question of reparations was the charge of responsibility for the war affixed upon Germany and her allies by Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. The clause was put at the head of the Reparations Chapter, and was apparently intended as a legal justification of the pecuniary demands made upon the Reich. Since the treaty was forced upon Germany, it is contended that her acceptance of war guilt was devoid of moral value; and in practice this clause became one of the most effective weapons in the Nazi armoury. Their spokesmen almost always slightly distorted its wording—which “affirmed the responsibility of Germany and her allies”—by inserting the word “sole” before responsibility and leaving out the words “and her allies,” a distortion which has been too readily repeated by 'apologists for Germany in £,ther countries. The labours of German—not only National-Socialist—-publicists have brought the German public round to believe that Germany was the least guilty of all nations for the outbreak of war in 1914. Colonial Propaganda

Herr Hitler pledges Germany to refrain from raising the colonial issue tor six years if Britain in return will pledge herself to assist Germany in recovering her former colonies when the six years are over.

Just as Bismarck and the ex-Kaiser were in turn won over to the “Colonial” school by a small band of active enthusiasts, so .the present movement has sprung from the unremitting exertions of a few propagandists—Dr, Schnee. Dr. Schacht, General von Epp and General Goering, and now it has been formally taken over by the Nazi Party. Within a few years the whole country is expected to be “colonial-minded.” The propagandists are teaching the people of the Reich that the colonies iwere wrongly stolen from it after the war; that the causes of the war are now known not t> have been those upon which the edifice of the Versailles Treaty was built up; Germany was not responsible for the outbreak of 1914, therefore the moral and legal basis upon which the colonies were handed to others has been destroyed.

President Wilson’s fifth of his Fourteen Points is exploited. It was therein stated that there was to be “an impartial adjustment of all colonial claims.” Yet Germany’s claims were not even considered. Her large empire, it is contended, was snatched from her, and handed over chiefly to Great Britain, which already held the largest Empire in the world. Also, say the German propagandists, Germany has never been self-support-ing, and she has special need for the supplies of foodstuffs and textile raw materials which could be found in the territories previously owned by her. It is maintained that modern methods could supply the bulk of the needs of the German people from the colonies which formerly were theirs. Every school child is made to study maps and statistics which indicate that his family’s bananas and lemons, coffee and tobacco, flax, hemp, jute and rubber could be produced in territory that used to be German. Hungary

Xhe Berlin correspondent of “The Times” says there is little likelihood of Hungary adhering to the anti-Com-iritern pact, Hungary lost almost two-thirds of her former territory as the result of the Great War. As a nation the Hungarians are proud, romantic, and clever. Ruled by a government neither dictatorial nor democratic, they have concentrated with extraordinary unanimity on the recovery of their lost lands. That purpose is first and foremost in any phase of Hungarian policy. Many of the territories which have fallen to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania were not essentially Hungarian; others were. Officially no difference is admitted. She means to rise once more to a prominent position on the Danube, and these aspirations prevent collaboration with the other Danubian States, which remain suspicious and even hostile.

Hungary’s foreign policy has been guided entirely by the prospect of obtaining a revision of the post-war frontiers. First she looked to the League of Nations, then to England, next to Italy; lately she has turned expectantly to Germany.

A poor farming country, Hungary is unable to build up a first-class modern army, though she has long overstepped the limits set by the Peace Treaty. She has no war industries to speak of, and her few industrial centres are within cannon range of the Czechoslovakian frontier. Her people are great fighters, among the best in Europe. The present policy of Hungary rests upon friendship with both Italy and Germany. Relations with Germany, resting on traditional sentiment, economic ties, and admiration for German strength, have become intimate in recent years. African Protectorates

Lord Hartington, replying rot the Dominions Secretary in the House of Commons, to a question whether the Protectorates of South Africa would be transferred to the Union of South Africa within the terms of the South African Act, said the British Government did not contemplate, any departure from the general scheme of the administrative schedule of the Act. “It is inconceivable to me” said General Hertzog, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, recently, “to accept that there can be much further delay in the transfer of the territories [Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Basutoland], or that the Union Government should be compelled to have recourse to the South African Act and request the King by means of a decision in Parliament to accede to the » transfer. “It is clear to me that in British quarters the question of transfer is lieing played with in a manner which does not keep adequate count of the right of the Union to demand that the transfer shall not be delayed any longer and that the Union’s request must be fulfilled. “It is obvious that the matter cannot be left at this. The Union’s right to the transfer of the administration of the territories to it is indisputable. That the time to transfer them to the Union has already transpired was conceded two years ago. It is therefore the duty of Great Britain to see to it that everything is done to advance the transfer which she undertook under the South Africa Act or to which she thereby agreed, and that her officials shall be instructed to act in the spirit of her obligations nobody will deny.”