Darkness And Terror Spreading In Europe: Warning By Shawcross

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 March 1948, Page 5

Darkness And Terror Spreading In Europe: Warning By Shawcross

(Rec. 10.40 a.m.) ' LONDON, March 12. The tragic events of Czechoslovakia had brought a new sense of urgency to the movement for Western Union, the AttorneyGeneral, Sir Hartley Shawcross, said in a speech today. “The iron curtain is moved further westwards. The lights of freedom have gone out. Darkness and terror have spread across the land. The peoples of Western Europe ask whose turn it will be next?” Sir Hartley, who said he was violently pro-Russian three years ago, added that the Communists hoped to promote economic chaos and political instability to enable them to seize power and dominate the people without war.

“With my Russian colleagues?’ he said, “I prosecuted the Nazis at Nuremberk. We condemned Nazi aggression and terror. I feel shame and humilation now to see under a different name the same aims pursued and the same technique followed without check. European nations must realise that they can sit on the fence no longer, or one by one they will fall off the fence into the pit the totalitarians are preparing for democracy.” Refugees From Czechoslovakia Refugees from Czechoslovakia reaching Hof (Germany) said that increasing numbers are trying to cross the border.

The American Press correspondent at Hof quotes one refugee as saying that Czech border guards fired on and killed an 18-year-old boy and wounded a woman trying to cross the frontier into Germany. The refugee added that persons trying to escape are becoming increasingly desperate, carrying revolvers and riflles. One group smashed a car through frontier control point gates. The guards have now established heavier road-blocks. The correspondent says that 137 Czechs,, who reached the American zone in the Hof vicinity, in the past few days, left for Schwabach to join 200 other Czech refugees.