A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 151, 23 March 1938, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Polish-Lithuanian Dispute The Poles feel that the establish nient of normal diplomatic relation with Lithuania will not. go beyond tin establishment of transport and com munication services and the opening <>' legations. > It is said that a Polish natiomi wishing to go from Vilna to Konigsberg must first go to Warsaw or try the local train from Bialystoek, as lie will not be given a visa to cross Lithuanian territory. A Britisher in Katina(Kovno), the capital, wanting to g" straight to Vilna (45 miles distant 11 cannot do so without special arrangements as there are no means of. communication. He would have to take a. car and drive along disused roads to what the Lithuanians call the "de marcation line" and. what the_Poles regard as the frontier, and then walk over and get another ear on the other side. A letter from Kaunas to Warsaw has to go via Riga or Germany. The same applies to telegrams and telephone calls, provided these latter are possible. • For Lithuania there is no frontier, I with Poland. This is said to be the ! Lithuanians’ silent protest against 'he I occupation by Polish troops of what I they consider the rightful capital ot Lithuania, Vilna, and its surrounding | country. To this day the Lithuanians i have no mark or sign to show ttye demarcation line. The railway line from Kaunas to Vilna is neatly sawn off at the demarcation line and only a few sleepers remain on the Lithuanian side to show that rafls used to lie there. The road vvliicli the Russians built from Kaunas to Vilna has fallen into disuse and a ditch has been dug to show tlie line.

Lithuania is unable to protest to Poland against the erection of frontier barriers, as .she does not entertain dip lomatic relations with Poland. Even in the matter of history the two countries are at variance. Poland says that Lithuania ceased to exist in the fourteenth century when a Lithuanian grand duke became ruler , of Poland and so united the two countries. Ihe Lithuanians are of otbiv opinion. Statistics, however, show that the ixipulation of the Vilna region is more than 50 per cent., up to 70 per cent.. Lithuanian. Brazil Plots Following the announcement of the frustration of a Fascist plot. President Vargas has dissolved the Fascist organisation. President Getulio Vargas recent'.' set up in Brazil what is to all intents and purposes a dictatorship. Dr. Vargas is the regime and the regime is Dr. Vargas. He is described as one who "walks alone along the city (Rio de Janeiro) streets unmolested and apparently greatly admired. His mind is reserved, lie works alone and has no confidants. He possesses much sang froid and seldom loses his poise.” It has often been said that he was planning to become Brazil’s perennial President, to succeed himself at the expiration of his present regular term, in May, 1038, when he engineered the coup. On the other hand, i< is said he acted because there was great unrest among the people by reason ot events in the presidential campaign then going on. Whichever candidate won, lie was likely to. face a chaotic political situation because the forces ’ backing each of them were so evenly divided that he would be unable to hold his position, and armed revolt was likely. Also, there was the integralists. or Fascist menace (now dissolved). The party was growing rapidly, and its supreme chief, Plinio Salgado, was seeking the Presidency. What took place on November 10 (when \ argas staged liis coup) may be accepted as the direct result of those conditions. At present the Brazilian Government finds itself financially embarrassed. External debt payments have been suspended. Thousands <sf Government employees who held more than one job have been dismissed. Several hundred captains of coastwise steamers have also been dismissed. They were naturalised Bra zilians, but the new Constitution demands such captains shall be native born. Dr. Vargas said he intends to further education by building schools and improving teaching methods, and also to build highways and railways. Mexican Oil Trouble

The American Ambassador in Mexie-> lias said that the United States is not, considering diplomatic intervention in the oil dispute and warned petroleum interests that they must seek redress for expropriation from the courts. A week before Chiistinas I’resideui Cardenas of Mexico issued details oi his decision In a wages dispute 'i'-

volving 18,000 Mexican oil workers em ployed by foreign oil companies. Tin dispute bad been pending for setei.i' mouths. By the decision, salaries, already the highest paid to workers m Mexico, were increased more than a third. The Government estimated the total increase at 7,200.000 dollars a year. The foreign Companies, Britt-ii and American, registered vigorous protests and said the increase would ex ceed 11,200,000 dollars a year. In January the State Department in Washington sought assurances that the campaign of Mexicanisatiou of Indus try would be slowed up. The oil com panies sought in vain an injunction against the Mexican Government’salarv order, and issued a statement it) January last saying flatly that they could not and would not meet the in creased wages and gave notice that strike wages the Government said were due to the workers would not be paid. Sixteen companies joined in issuing th'* statement. The wage increases were to have gone into effect at midnigli New Year’s Eve. Hitler’s Rise

Addressing the Reichstag, Herr Hitler said: "From the deep humiliation our people have experienced an asceu sion which we ourselves originally believed improbable and our opponentregarded as impossible.” An historian said in 1933: "Hitler is a portent, a sign of the times, an etiec. rather than a creative cause. He isimply the voice of crushed Germany He is a petty prophet proclaiming thMessianic hope of a despairing peopl> , . There must be some cause for th almost volcanic uprising. "The reason is found in the povert, the hunger, the chaos of despair in; which Germany has been plungei Hitler was the inevitable product o the Versailles Treaty and impossib reparations, which bad left Germany seething mass of political unrest,.

"The Hitler movement was an am: toxin to the poison of defeatism an despair. It was a mass protest, a co lective mania. . . . Obedient, disciplii cd, conscript German,; bad always f” lowed a leader in uniform. He suddei ly appeared in the person of Adolf Hi ler.”