SPECIOUS PROPOSALS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 189, 8 May 1941, Page 10

SPECIOUS PROPOSALS

German Alternatives For French People COUNTRY’S ENSLAVEMENT (British Official Wireless.) (Received May 7, 7-50 p.m.) RUGBY, May 6. While sympathizing with the Vichy Government’s problem of choosing between further concessions to the Nazis and the pathetic continuance of the spectacle of large numbers of ablebodied young Frenchmen in German prison camps, "The Times” insists that the people of France should remember that however specious the Nazi proposals may be, they amount to no more than an offer to shorten the temporary captivity of their sons in order that they may help toward the lasting enslavement of their country.

The paper says that according to reports from the United States, the VicePremier, Admiral Darlan, probably has been sent home from Paris with peremptory demands for further submission to the Nazi will. Under threats -that Vichy has little-power to resist unoccupied France is to be harnessed to Herr Hitler’s war machine. By the terms of the armistice he cunningly limited the extent of his responsibility for the affairs of the starving and resentful people, while providing himself with ample instruments for bending them at any time to serve bis purpose. •‘The Times” concludes that while young Frenchmen remain imprisoned, Herr Hitler is precluded by the Geneva Convention of 1929 from employing them directly in any war industry. But he has discovered that he can use them indirectly as a most powerful lever In his plot to force the war industries of France to work for him, The Press Association reports that Admiral Darlan has ordered a reorganization of the French police force, making the police in all towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants directly responsible to him as Minister of the Interior, and not to the municipalities. It is reported from Vichy that Admiral Darlan had a long talk with M. Laval in Paris today.