BRITAIN AND GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 54, 27 November 1937, Page 10

BRITAIN AND GERMANY

Viscount Halifax, on his return from his visit to Herr Hitler, has expressed the hope that the door to a good understanding between Britain and Germany having been again opened, will be kept open. The propitious implications of this remark do not by any means accord with those underlying the six points which the Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian states Herr Hitler has laid down as the basis of this understanding. How far this statement is correct remains to be seen. It has been denied in Germany, and the British. Prime Minister himself has told the House of Commons that speculations as to the nature and results of the conversations were “irresponsible and highly inaccurate,” the understandirlg with the German Government being that, for the present, they were to remain confidential.

It is certain that if the Manchester Guardian’s statement were correct, there would be small hope of the door being kept open.. The six points asserted to have been made by Herr Hitler are so far in conflict with British public opinion on the issues raised that .any question of negotiations on this basis would make embarrassing difficulties for the British Government. Would British people recognise Italian sovereignty in Abyssinia ? Agree to assist Germany to regain, her lost colonies at the end of six years? Consent to abandon Austria. in the diplomatic, political and military sphere? Consent to a reorganisation of the State of Czechoslovakia on the lines of the Swiss fedeial system, with the three million-odd Germans therein incorporated in a separate canton ? These questions involve either a substantial modification or complete reversal of British policy. People in recent years’ seem to regard treaty repudiations with a feeling of inevitableness, and if they do not relish the fait accompli which appears to be the favoured device of certain aggressive Powers, are apparently prepared to reconcile themselves to its results in a spirit of fatalism. On the question of Italian sovereignty in Abyssinia they may say that now. this business is over there is no use having any more trouble about it. There was much controversy over the reintroduction of conscription in Germany, and the return to the Rhineland, both breaches of the. Versailles Treaty, but these were accomplished facts, and have remained so. How far is it possible to allow the international scene to be changed to suit the policies of interested Powers apparently intent 011 laying the foundations of future domination in world affairs?

The reference to Czechoslovakia and Austria touches the ket nel of German aspirations in Europe. A German canton within a Czechoslovakian federal system would be German in sentiment and in its political aspirations, and in the event of a crisis would become a. German province. The proposal, if a fact, would amount to a wedge for a future separation. Britain is pledged with others to maintain the political and territorial integrity of both Czechoslovakia and Austria. The object of the Versailles Treaty in this connection was to make impossible a German hegemony in Europe, which was the aim of the Imperial Germany’s Mittel-Europa policy. If the Manchester Guardian has been correctly informed, Herr Hitler’s six points contain the possibility of a revival of this objective. The development fundamental to an understanding of the present situation is that both Germany and Italy appear to be shaping their national policies without reference, to the opinions of others, and as if they could conceive of no opposition worth considering.