SWISS AND THE WAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 November 1939, Page 9

SWISS AND THE WAR

PUBLIC OPINION UNANIMOUS.

GENEVA, September 25. Swiss public opinion upon the war is unanimous. It is impossible to find a single Swiss paper, whether published in French, German or Italian, which does not openly fasten the responsibility for the war upon one person.

Swiss editors are careful not to mention this person, thus, as they frequently say, obeying the instructions of the Federal Council to observe neutrality. But no one has any doubt who that person is, and the Swiss man in the street does not hesitate to mention his name.

This is a very different story from 1914, when Switzerland was heavily divided, and the sympathies of the majority of the country were, perhaps, on the whole against Great Britain and France.

One of the operative causes of this final unanimity has been the SovietGerman pact. Thus, the anti-Social-ists in French Switzerland, who detested the Popular Front Government of M. Blum in France, and also the bankers and industrialists of Zurich, who professed to see in Hitler a champion of their cause against the rising tide of Communism, have been forced to sing a very different tune. Berne is rapidly taking on its atmosphere of 1914-1918. The legations, belligerent and neutral, are expanding their staffs and are already instituting snecial bureaux for Press and other information purposes. The town is thronged with the agents of all nations, and the authorities are finding it difficult to cope with the influx. Zurich remains normal, but Basle looks like a beleagured city.' This is only a necessary precaution in a town on the frontiers of both France and Germany. /

But the view is generally held that so long as Italy remains neutral it is worth Germany’s while to remain friends with Switzerland, if only to secure the international traffic between the two countries through Switzerland. Germany has already sent large supplies of coal to Italy through Basle and SL Gotthard.

It is hardly necessary to add that no intelligent Swiss has the slightest fear of any violation of his country’s neutrality by France.