PACTS.

Evening Star, Issue 21823, 12 September 1934, Page 8

PACTS.

Time and again eminent Germans have deplored that their countrymen have no political sense. The defect has been shown notoriously under Herr Hitler’s regime. .Despite all officially inspired extravagances, aud a few natural fireeaters excepted, it is exceedingly probable that the average German desires nothing else so much l as to live at peace with all the world, seeing his country enjoy the highest esteem that the world is able to give it. That must be conceived to be the deepest desire of Herr Hitler. Unfortunately the only idea his Government seems ever to have had of how equality and esteem might be won for Germany has been by the brandishing of armed fists. Equality had been granted in everything but armaments, and even there as regards the principle, before the Nazis came to power. Their militaristic speeches and demonstrations first made the rest of the world distrustful of Germany; then, by its dramatic withdrawal from the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference, “the Leader” went a long way to make her an outcast among the nations. Those withdrawals, however, could still be palliated. Germany had cause to be impatient with one-sided disarmament. She would have had more cause to resent the slowness of her neighbours to meet her on that ground if her own conduct had been less of a kind to make them afraid of concessions. The twenty-four hours during which, in his own phrase, Hitler was the Supreme Court of Germany, and -Nazis stood Nazis against the Aval], shooting them without any public trial, deepened a disgust throughout the Avorld Avhich had begun with the proscription of the Jens. And the murder of Herr Dollfuss in Austria, folloAving German agitations, completed that disgust. Before those last two acts had occurred Hitler sought to grapple one friend to his soul by his visit to Mussolini at Venice. But the Dbllfuss atrocity was fatal to German-Italian relations.

Ohe way was left for Germany to do something to restore her position. It was to get back into the League of Nations, which has no mind to close the door to her, and to do her best for the proposed Eastern Locarno pact which stood for new' emphasis on her equality and an'increase to her security. Neither Germany nor Poland, however, lias favoured the pact, which requires them both as members. They preferred pacts, it was explained, in which only two countries were concerned, rather than those with a larger scope, though the more countries that are included in an agreement the less risk it entails of being suspected as threatening others. The Poles are said to have feared that the Locarno plan wmuld make difficulties for them if, in the event of a possible Russian-Jap-anese conflict, Germany should take sides as the fighting ally of Japan, which would automatically start hostilities between Germany and Russia with Polish territory lying between them. On the face of it, the pact wmuld be more likely to prevent such an alliance. It was expected that the proposals would be modified to meet other German objections. Germany, however, has chosen to mak > the pact project another lever for obtaining her armament requirements. She cannot, she has announced, accept the obligations that would bo involved while she is' less armed than her neighbours.

That objection may be overcome, since the armament demands of Germany, at the time when she broke with the conference, were not unreasonable. Efforts are being made to persuade Poland to modify her attitude. Meanwhile there is. causo for satisfaction in the negotiations for a pact that arc in progress between Italy and France. Those two Powers have had their differences, more especially affecting naval ratios, ever since the war. An agreement that would end them would be the next best thing to a wider pact.