The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1937. ANXIOUS TIMES.

Evening Star, Issue 22573, 15 February 1937, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1937. ANXIOUS TIMES.

The fact that the British Government is seeking authority to raise over the next five years a maximum sum of ,400 million pounds, largely by borrowing, for defence purposes, tells its own story of the state of Europe. It is a mournful necessity. There will be artificial prosperity while the expenditure continues, and the opposite of prosperity when it stops. Yet, as evidence of common fears, every other Government in Europe is doing the same thing. There was small need for Mr Duff Cooper, Minister of War, to remark on signs of a coming catastrophe. The dangers to European peace have been evident for all eyes to see, but Mr Duff Cooper is responsible for recruiting; he may have reason for stressing the obvious. In a sane Europe there would be no need for alarms. The German Government professes to dread warlike designs of Russia, but Russia could not invade Germany effectively in 1914, when two-thirds of the German armies were in France, and ta-day 400 miles of Poland separate the two countries. It is sufficiently certain, moreover, that Russia does not want war in the West while she has cause to fear it in the East. She has also her own internal troubles, as continuous treason trials make clear. The German Government may be supposed to want war as little, but the Natis have preached the gospel which makes for war ever since their accession to power. The fear that Europe has of Germany is that Herr Hitler, having sown the wind for four years as the prime means of establishing his divinity, will find it beyond his powers to hold back the whirlwind. If the policy of Great Britain was a puzzle to Germany’s rulers while it stood vainly for disarmament and co-opera-tion among the Powers, they have no fault to find with this new defence expenditure. A world in which everybody fears everybody and goes armed to the teeth is a world which they can understand. If the Nazis desire still to have Germany peaceful that object cannot be made easier by the fact that Germans have been put on a siege diet. The concentration of all energies on rearmament is not helpful to the national economics. There has been suggestion of discussions of an international loan to Germany in return for policy concessions which would make

Her less feared as a neighbour. The idea would be most reasonable, whether it has been discussed or not. But Herr Hitler has “ deprecated economics,” and declared in advance that such a bargain would never be considered. Wherever there are Germans in former German territory Nazi propagandists have been busy. German designs on the Ukraine have been mistrusted since Herr Hitler made a reference to that region a few months ago which may have been no more than clumsy and tactless, but recalled statements made earlier by him in ‘My Struggle ’ which could not be read otherwise than as a threat. In 'Poland the allegation that a secret organisation was planning to restore Polish Silesia to Germany was made when twenty-nine Nazis were sentenced last week to from eighteen to thirty months’ imprisonment, with lose of civil rights for five years. It was alleged that they had planned a military rising, were in communication with the German equivalent of the Ogpu, and had sworn allegiance to Herr Hitler. Now alarm has been caused by reports of German attempts to provoke a revolt in Czechoslovakia, where a large German minority—nearly one fourth of the total population—has been well treated by the most enlightened and liberal of the new States. The Czechoslovaks have ruled their country in peace and comparative prosperity, leaving no room for Lord Rothermere’s gibes, and Bohemia, which forms a main part of it, was a kingdom for centuries before it became part of Austria-Hungary. The Czechs have been alarmed for a long time past about what may be coming to them, and in their concern for safety have made alliances not very easy to reconcile with one another. To-day it is reported that their Government has authorised an increase in the strength of the standing army from 130,000 to an unlimited number, in view of the “ extraordinary European tension.” Unfortunately, the phrase is not exaggerated.