A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Pastor Niemoller I’astor Niemoller has given a fiat refusal to cease preaching, if released from prison. lie says that his call to preach came from God and nor from the State. Dr. Martin Niemoller, Pastor of Dahlem (Berlin), who is the leading personality in the Confessional (Opposition) movement, in the Evangelical Church, was arrested on July 1, 1987. ’The charge against him was a political one, that: "For a long time I’astor Niemoller has in sermons and addresses made inflammatory statements attacking leading jrersonages of the State and the National Socialist movement, and spreading untrue assertions about, measures taken by the State. He has done this with a view to creating alarm among the population. Furthermore, he has incited to disobedience of State laws and decrees. His utterances have furnished material for the antiGerman foreign Press.” He was released shortly after arrest, and then re-arrested. His trial began in Berlin on February 7, 1958, in camera. On March 2 he was sentenced to seven months’ confinement in a fortress and lined on each of two charges, additional imprisonment to be imposed if the fines were not paid. He was later removed to a concentration camp National Insurance

The Federal Cabinet of the Commonwealth of Australia has decided to drop the National Insurance Bill, which required contributions to begin next May, and to delay the proclamation of the original Act till probably May or June of next year.

Mr. Casey, the Commonwealth Treasurer, introduced in the House of Representatives on May 4 last a National Insurance Bill, which provided for sickness and disablement benefits, medical service, and old age, widows’ ami orphans’ pensions applying to all persons over 14 employed in manual labour and to non-manual workers with incomes of not more than £365 a year The scheme was to cover 1,850,000 people and their dependants, or more than half the population of the Commonwealth, and provided for free medical treatment and medicines-find sickness benefits after 26 weeks’ contribn tions. The benefits were 20/- a week tor men, 15/- for women, and allowances of 3/6 for each dependant child under 15.

When the right to sickness benefit (had been exhausted disablement benefit was available after 10-1 contributions at the rate of 15/- a week for men, 12/6 for women, with an allowance for children.

These benefits were to cease for women at the age of 60, and at the age of 65 for men, after which the men were to receive an old age pension of 20/-, and women of 15/- with a continuance of medical benefits. The widow’s pension was 15/- restricted to 12/6 till 1944, with 3/6 for each child. An orphan’s pension of 7/6 was allowed for each child under 15 of insured persons. The weekly contributions were fixed at 3/- for men and 2/- for women, of which the employer was to pay half. These were to be increased by 6d. after five years, and the men’s contribution by 6d. more after 10 years. Employees under 16 were to pay Bd. weekly .for medical benefit only. The Commonwealth was to meet the initial deficits, the capitalized value of which is £17,500,000 on health, and £264,000,000 on pensions, by guaranteeing the additional liabilities of approved societies administering health benefits, by crediting them with reserve values, and by an annual grant of 10/an insured person. The Bill passed the House of Representatives on June 20 by 33 votes to 28, and the Senate on July 3. Buganda

The native administration of the Kingdom of Buganda, embracing territory in East Africa, has issued a statement that the return of Tanganyika to Germany would be a betrayal of trust. Buganda, a province of the Uganda Protectorate, comprises, together with islands in Lake Victoria, Nyanza, the districts of Mengo, Masaka, Mubeude and Entebbe. Owing to sleeping sickness, these islands were entirely, depopulated, the inhabitants, to the number of 20,000 being temporarrly settled on the mainland. They were afterward restored, with their cattle. The province is recognized as a native kingdom under a kabaka—the present chief is Dandi Chwa—who is assisted in the government by the Governor, three native Ministers, and a lukiko or native council. Each county and district chief also has his lukiko to assist him in local government and in the administration of justice. In serious matters an appeal lies from these native bodies to British courts. Transfer Of Colonies

“I do not believe that there Is today any section of opinion in this country which is disposed to hand over to any other country one acre of any territories or peoples for whose government we are responsible either as a colonial or mandatory power,’ said Mr. Malcolm MacDonald in the House ot Commons. ~ , On February 5, 1936, Mr.- Lloyd George said: “Under the Treaty of Versailles these territories were not given to us'as British possessions; they were given to the League of Nations, and the legal right is vested in the League of Nations. “They are in a totally different posttion from the other possessions of the British Umpire. ... It was thoroughly understood that they were territories where we were mandatories, and where we were not the legal possessors, as it were. That is my interpretation. I do not believe you will have peace in the world till you reconsider the mandates. ... 1 do not believe, and I am bound to say it here, -that you can make peace in the world unless you say that the British Empire is prepared to reconsider the question of mandates.” On April 6, 1936, Mr. -Seville Chamberlain said: “In the first place, let me point out that there is a clear distinction between colonies and mandated territories. So far as I know, no one has ever asked or suggested that the British Empire should give up any of its colonies, and I need hardly say that if such a demand were made it could not possibly be entertained for a moment Mandated territories are not colonies. They are in a somewhat different category and they are only part of the British Empire in what I may call a colloquial sense.” “It is quite impossible,” said Lord Snowden, “to think that peaceable relations can continue to exist so long as Groat Britain, France, Belgium. Portugal, and Italy possess large colonial territories, while a nation like Germany is deprived of all possibilities of expansion. . . . Some of the mandates now in force must be transferred."