TROUBLED EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 18, 23 January 1939, Page 10

TROUBLED EUROPE

EX-MINISTER'S TOUR

THE TOTALITARIAN YOKE

After a 12 months' tour of Australia, Europe, and North America, Mr. A. . Stallworthy, formerly Minister 'of Health, returned to Auckland by the ■Mariposa from San Francisco on Friday, accompanied by Mrs. Stallworthy and Miss Tui Stallworthy. In the course of the trip, the party travelled a distance equal to three times round the earth, and visited more than a dozen countries, states the "New Zealand Herald." Mr. Stallworthy noted a fundamental contrast between the great public works which he saw under construction in Germany and those which he **•- v observed later in America. -In Berlin, he said, vast buildings were under confuction, but they were to house State partments, such as the Ministry of . Propaganda and the Air Ministry. Historic structures and monuments were being demolished to make room for them. The great new motor roads were not for tourist traffic or for ' ie development of the countryside through which they passed, but simply for the rapid transport of armies, and moreover, all was being done with vir- \ tually forced labour, working long hours. In America, on the other hand, all the works he saw were directed to and social progress and to the well-being ar happiness of the people. In Europe Mr. Stallworthy had cvi- / dence oh all hands of the totalitarian yoke. In Germany letters which he and his family received and posted were opened in transit. A substantial '- German business man told him that exchange control affected every detail of the lives of the people, and said that he himself had incurred endless trouble in getting permission to make a trip to Brussels, for which he was allowed to take only the equivalent of £2 10s out of the country. Marching youths were to be seen everywhere in Germany and Italy. The international situation was reflected in the new military aerodromes which he saw in all parts of England. Mr. Stallworthy heard many people in England express themselves against further efforts to "appease" the dictators, and there seemed to be much regret over the resignation of promising young Ministers after the September crisis. The same feeling towards the totalitarian countries was very - noticeable in the United States. He was there when Mr. Eden's New York speech was broadcast, and both the sentiments and the manner of their expression met with widespread approval. _______„_„_