A GRAVE OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 151, 29 June 1939, Page 8

A GRAVE OUTLOOK

In the light of the latest news from Europe the international situation there may be regarded as worse even than at any point in the intermittent seiies of crises during, the past eighteen months. The gravity of the outlook is emphasised by the utterances of two leading statesmen in France and Britain within the last forty-eight hours. M. Daladier, the Premier of France, before the summer prorogation of the Chamber of Deputies, is reported as envisaging "the worst international situation for twenty years."

I am convinced, he said, that we will be faced this summer with a choice between peaceful collaboration between peoples or domination by some of them. Appeasement alone is insufficient. France will raise all her forces against possible ventures towards domination, and the Government will take, if necessary, ali; measures of its own responsibility. ..

These are the words of a responsible statesman who; saw active service in |Jie .Great.War an 4 is,nftw.guiding the destinies of FranceV His view is corroborated, with additional detail, by Mr. Winston Churchill, a member rbfKßntish Cabinets in War-time arid also a soldier. -Speaking at the City Carlton Club, he said, according to a. cable message today:;

We must all consider ■ July, August, and! September as months in which the tension in Europe will become most severe. . I am in entire accord with the French. Premier that we are in for a period of danger more acute and more heavily laden with ugly facts than any period in living memory. I take a most serious view of the,position in which we find ourselves.

The position is described by B/Ir. Churchill as to what happened last year, but with a very important difference." The difference, he explained, was that last year the security of Czecho-Slovakia was not guaranteed. ISfow, said Mr. Churchill, the brute fad; staring us in the face is that in view of Britain's absolute guarantee to Poland, Britain and France would be forced to declare warj should Poland be subjected to unprovoked attack by Germany." Then he added: "If Poland does not yield, preparations are going oii;night and day to attack her with large forces from the west and south." Later . messages ; state that M. Daladier, in a conference with Parliamentary leaders, expressed the fear that an internal coup in Danzig was imminent, after which the city would declare itself part ;of the Reich. Warsaw reports that 4000 Germans have entered Danzig in the last twenty-four hours. As Poland has» laid the greatest stress on the freedom of Da,nzig from German domination as vital to Polish interests, a German coup in Danzig may well be regarded as a blow at Polish independence, with the consequences indicated by Mr. Churchill. There is nothing to show that Herr Hitler means to desist from his timetable policy of aggression. , The evidence is all to the contrary. He himself said only this week that life in the long run belongs to those races who are prepared to stake everything for their existence. But in his calculation of risks he underestimates the strength of the British Empire.

I wish. I could convince Herr Hitler, said Mr. Churchill, that the British Empire has reached the limit of its patience. I ask Herr Hitler to consider whether his life's work may not be irretrievably cast away. I trust Britain's air strength will not be underrated in German quarters.

To which might be added that a similar miscalculation by Germany in 1914 brought ' about her downfall.