GERMANS CRAMPED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 61, 14 March 1939, Page 9

GERMANS CRAMPED

"RACE WITHOUT SPACE"

ENVIOUS OF BRITAIN

HOW TO ACHIEVE DEMANDS

(Independent Cable Service.) BERLIN, March 13. Dr. Robert Ley, leader of the Nazi Labour Front, speaking in Munich today, said that th» Germans were still a race without space. They must stand together in order • to break this cramped condition. "Forty million Englishmen rule 470,000,000 people," he said. "We are at least as good as the English, and fate should give/us the same task. We have'only to Insist on our demands and we will get them. "Despite all our efforts, a nation as cramped as we are is bound to fall a victim to Marxist teachings, [ even with the best social institutions."

GERMANY'S CLAIM

DEMAND FOR COLONIES

SPEECH BY BRITISH M.P.

The claim of Germany for colonial territory at the expense of Britain was examined by Mr. Harold Nipolson, M.P., at a meeting of the Liberal National Monthly Forum, states the "Manchester Guardian." '■One of the very many things wrong with this country," said Mr. Nicolson, "is that our conscience is overwhelmingly tender and we have no faith, whereas Germany is overwhelmingly inspired by faith and has no conscience." He tried to dissipate our national reluctance to take pride in the work of our pioneer colonisers and to recognise colonising as a national quality to be set beside Germany's national gift for music, philosophy, and industry. Coming down to details, he went through, one by one, the arguments used by Germany since the war to justify her claim for colonial possessions, and he admitted that Germany had some ground for complaint over the attitude of the Allies at Versailles. In particular Mr. Nicolson agreed with the German view that the mandate system was a piece of humbug when it was established. Later he claimed that the work of men like Lord Lugard and Sir Donald Cameron had turned the mandate system into a reality. "TWO GOOD REASONS." The accusation made by the Allies that Germany had administered her colonies brutally was, he thought, "the most illogical, inconsistent, and hypocritical accusation." Nevertheless, he^ concluded that there was no particular reason on the balance of justice or injustice why Britain should give back the German colonies. On the other hand, there were two good reasons why she should not. The first was strategical—and he regretted that "opinion in this country has gone strategically blind." Germany certainly wanted strong naval bases in the Indian Ocean and the Canaries in order to dominate British trade routes. Even in the time of the Weimar Republic this had been a German aim, along with the "mittelafrika" German empire. It was not likely that Germany would want back her former territories, which were scattered. Mr. Nicolson envisaged a demand for a compact central area instead, and Britain might find Kenya wedged between German territory in the south and Italian Ethiopia in the north. Mr. Nicolson also argued that it would be "wrong" to return the colonies. The development of the mandate system upon principles variously described as "trusteeship,*' "dual mandate," or "indirect rule" was giving the native a new sense of his own worth. STATUS OF THE AFRICANS. No doubt, observed Mr. Nicolson, this argument would be considered as another piece of humbug, but he asserted that the experience of Tanganyika, and to some extent "Uganda, proved that the Africans were quite different from what they had been in 1914. They were regarded not as equals, but certainly not as inferiors. It would be "an absolute crime and betrayal" to hand these people over to a regime based on the belief that the human race was divided into two categories of good and bad —Aryan and non-Aryan. Mr. Nicolson thought it possible, however, that we might have to make great sacrifices, even to surrender certain areas in Africa as "part, of that vague phrase 'a general settlement.'" Express guarantees should be attached to any such transfer preventing the sudden removal of the benefits given to the people, and preventing the Use of these people for the raising of a Vast negro army.