NEUTRALS’ FATE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 118, 12 February 1940, Page 10

NEUTRALS’ FATE

Could Well Be That Of

Poland

NAZI ABOMINATIONS

Warning Given By Sir Kingsley Wood (British Official Wireless.) (Received February 11, 7.5 p.m.) RUGBY, February 10. Referring to the inconvenience and sometimes even the hardships which the exercise of Britain s sea power and her use of the economic weapon necessarily entailed for neutrals, the Minister of Air, Sir Kingsley Wood, in an address at Bristol’today said: “We sincerely regret it and’ are doing our best to reduce it to a minimum.

“But we feel we are justified in asking those who are affected to remember that we are not only fighting for our existence as a nation but also for the existence of all those principles without which life would not be worth living.” He urged the neutrals to ponder the alternative to these inconveniences—“the whole of Europe is suffering the unspeakable horrors which even now are being perpetrated on the unhappy Polish people.” This led the Air Minister to the statement that “there is no possible doubt that the conditions in the German-occupied part of Poland are simply abominable. They are far worse than in the Russian-occupied area.

“The German methods since September have passed through two phases, he said. "They tried first Io terroriz** (he population by shooting individuals picked at random from the towns. In Konin. for instance, they decided te shoot 35 people: they collected 34 victims and I lien, finding they were short of one, went into a chemist’s shop air, seized the first person they found.

Uneasy Partnership. “They then realized that these meth ods would not avail them and would lead nowhere, and they decided to decimate the natural leaders of the national movement —the Polish Government estimates the number already shot at 15,000.” Referring to the understanding between Germany and Russia, Sir Kingsley Wood said that though tlie scale was unknown here, it was certain that the understanding would be broken as soon as it suited Germany, and that “not even von Ribbentrop would suggest that Germany has drawn any great advantage, either political or material, from this uneasy partnership” The Air Minister then proceeded to contrast the firmness and completeness of Britain’s alliance with France. Sir Kingsley Wood said, "Never in any great conflict in our history has this country been so united and so resolute. 7 We are lighting for all those principles of international order and decencv without which the world would be intolerable. We are fighting for a real pence and not a patelied-up pact which would leave Europe once again subject to assault and violation.”