CENSURE OF GERMANY

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1935, Page 7

CENSURE OF GERMANY

MR. MACDONALD’S ARTICLE

LONDON PRESS COMMENT (BY CABLE —PBESS ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] LONDON, April 25. The "News-Chronicle” says: “It is believed that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’sarticle in the ‘Newsletter’ was written without consulting the Cabinet. One authoritative quarter asks why he went out of his way to rub salt into Germany’s wounds.” The “News-Chronicle,” in a leading article, says: “The nation has a right to know whether the statement of the Prime Minister is meant to carry the weight, of a Government pronouncement. If so, it should not have appeared in a party journal.” The “Daily Herald” comments: — “This is a strange, perilous doctrine.” It asks whether it is the considered opinion of the British Cabinet. It says: “We are being inevitably forced into a military alliance. If so, then the country must be told whither this new policy igjeading,”, . ... The “Dajly, Telegraph" says:- “The cause -oL, peace. is sometimes best served • by, absolute frankness’. The Prime Minister’s w-ords represent the true mind of every Government in Europe besides the British Government.” FRENCH~OPINION PARIS, April 26. Referring to Mr. MacDonald’s article, “L’Jntransigeant” says:—“His moral condemnation is insufficient.” It suggests that if Mr. MacDonald wants his warning to he heeded, he should declare in unmistakeable terms that, if Germany attacks France, then Britain immediately will place herself on the side of France. GERMAN ESTIMATE BERLIN, April 26. The “Volkischer Beobachter” says it believes that ill health is responsible for Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s article. It says: He must have reached a stage of fretfulness, which begins seriously to bias the judgment. The British Government must bear the main responsibility for this new attempt to discriminate against Germany. NO PRESS LIBERTY. BERLIN, April 25. Herr Ammann, the Nazis’ press chief, has promulgated a law which is expected to eliminate all the Nazi newspaper opponents, thus ending an embittered struggle which has been continuing since the Nazis gained power. The new law compels all newspaper publishers to register the names of the persons interested in their newspapers, and the amount of their share, and also to give proof as to whether their origin is Aryan as far as 1800, which is more sweeping than the Aryan test for officials. The law also prevents the publication of newspapers by joint stock concerns, co-opera-tive organisations, public organisations, professional organisations or class organisations, although Nazi party nominees are excluded from the provisions of the law. The laws thus means the disappearance of the Catholic newspapers in Germany, unless they are exempted by Herr Ammann, who is now Press Dictator and is empowered to summarily dismisss the editors and other employees of newspapers. The papers are permitted six months to comply with his orders.

AERIAL SPYING. (Recd. April 27,10.30 a.m.) PARIS, April 25. Th© Air Ministry announces that the Government is taking local measures judged necessary for aerial policing of forbidden zones on the northeastern frontier. It says, that the decision is due to repeated violations of forbidden territory by foreign aircraft, suspected of taking photographs. A German aeroplane recently flew over the Apach aerial station and new fortification? at Cattenon. Another circled above the fortified works at Waldwiese. FRANCO-RUSSIAN PACT. (Recd. April 27, Noon.) PARIS, April 26. M. Laval declared that he would refuse to sign a Franco-Soviet pact if, as the French Communists desired, it involved mutual military assistance, as it would produce war. “I am in agreement with Moscow, and envisage a pact preventing, not provoking war, forming part of the European collective security, not directed against any country.”