Evening Post MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1933. SIMON AS PEACEMAKER

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 146, 18 December 1933, Page 8

Evening Post MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1933.

SIMON AS PEACEMAKER

Writing in the "Observer" of October 22 under the heading "Hitler's Next"—Hitler's last having! been the withdrawal of Germany from the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations on October 14—Mr. Garvin welcomed the Aveek of calm that had followed the great explosion. He described M. Daladier's happy phrase, "We shall be deaf to no word and blind to no action," as indicating the wise attitude of France which it was for other nations to follow. Should reassuring words be supported by any sign of convincing action, said Mr. Garvin, there will be fuller relief. Meanwhile there is a truco to controversy with the unfortunate exception of those personal attacks upon Sir John Simon which wise' statesmanship at Berlin would stop at once. The British Foreign Secretary is even more identified with the British Government than is Baron yon Neurath with his own. Every armistice must be mutual. One reassuring sign of the kind desired had been given after the writing of the article, and that was the suppression of Professor Banse's work on "Military Science." As the theme of this notorious little manual is that the mind of the nation, from childhood on, must be impregnated and familiarised with ' the idea of war, it is better known abroad as the "child's guide to war," and the official suggestion that the book was withdrawn because "isolated sentences and sections of the book have been quoted in a tendentious manner by certain organs of the foreign Press in order to asperse the peaceful intentions of the new Germany" was plainly absurd. But on the principle of. not looking a gift-horse in the mouth the "Observer" abstained from any comment except that "further action in this spirit Avould make a happy change." The personal attacks upon Sir John Simon were certainly a very unpleasant feature of that week of relative calm which followed Germany's dramatic breakaway from, Geneva. The blame for the sudden change of front, which is generally attributed to the pressure of Germany's domestic difficulties, was thrown by Baron yon Neurath upon Sir John Simon. Semi-officially, at any rate, it was stated in Berlin that "British policy had been influenced by the French during the September discussions," and Britain in turn was accused of passing on false information to Washington which poisoned the mind of the American Government. In his manifestos and his broadcast speeches the attitude of Herr Hitler himself appears to have been strictly correct, but on October 16 the Berlin correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" reported that "instructions had been given to the Press not to attack England or the British Government as a whole, but to confine hostile criticisms to Sir John Simon personally." The fact that Herr Nadolny had returned from Geneva indignant with Sir John Simon might, this correspondent suggested, have had something to 3o with it, and it may be' safely assumed that ever since that severe dispatch in" which Sir John repudiated tlie claim of the Papen Government to a unilateral amend- . ment of the Versailles Treaty, he has been a tempting mark for Press invective. Instead of egging on those personal attacks upon Sir John Simon two months ago, "wise statesmanship at Berlin"-would, indeed, as Mr. Garvin says, have stopped them promptly, but we may be sure that since November 12 at any rate they have not been heard. Even before the plebiscite Herr Hitler was talking peace, banners inscribed "We want peace" figured at some of his meetings, and at Cologne he actually said, "We want lo be friends with Europe." Since the poll his words, and doubtless his thoughts also, have turned still more strongly in that direction. Jhose polls at which there

was no such thing as free voting and no candidate could stand without his leave were in one sense an unmitigated farce. But, farce or no farce, they were such a performance as probably not more than two or three other people on this planet could have carried through; and its complete success along the lines that he designed is thus an almost unique testimony to his personal power. Tlie demonstration is, however, strictly confined to the limits of Germany. The man who within those limits has acquired a power incomparably greater than that of Frederick the Great or Bismarck has at ihe same time made her as weak beyond those limits as they had made it strong. "We want to be friends with Europe," said Herr Hitler at Cologne, yet in nine months of power he had left Germany without a single friend in Europe or anywhere else. If v that strange plebiscite has made his domestic autocracy more unassailable than ever, it has deepened by contrast the utter failure of the foreign policy by which he was to destroy the Treaty of Versailles and lead Germany to triumph over her former enemies. To suppose that he cannot see that contrast as clearly as anybody else, and feel it even more deeply, would be absurd. If this perilous isolation of Germany as the result of his leadership is having a sobering effect upon Herr Hitler it must also be giving him some idea of his indebtedness to the diplomacy of Britain which he made the ostensible cause of his breach with Geneva. There was naturally a disposition on the part of Germany's/former enemies to take him at his word, and treat that breach as final. But under Mr. Mac Donald and Sir John S.imon Britain has turned the thoughts of Europe in the opposite direction, and insisted that the work of peace must still go on, if no longer through the League only, then concurrently through other diplomatic channels, and, if not at Geneva, then elsewhere. Probably nobody is better pleased than Herr Hitler himself with the latest outcome of that policy. Berlin will not be excluded from the European capitals to which Sir John Simon will pay a Christmas visit, and we may be sure that, instead of being a "persona non grata" in Berlin, he will be at least as welcome there as anybody else. As "The Times" Says, "the immediate purpose of the present diplomatic activity in the various capitals, and almost the sole purpose of Great Britain, is to bring about a basis of negotiations between France and Germany." As at Locarno it will be as a friend of both countries that Britain will be represented in Paris and Berlin. The little tiff at Geneva two months ago has made no change.