GERMAN WAR POWER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 12 May 1927, Page 8

GERMAN WAR POWER.

STILL TO BE FEARED

BELGIUM MINISTER SPEAKS - OUT

M. Vundervelde (Minister of Foreign Affairs) has made a. report to the Chamber on the subject of inter-allied military control and the Nationalist control* in Germany (writes the Brussels correspondent of the- “San Francisco Chronicle”).' Since the Tliofry meetings tilings, lie said, had! happened in Germany that were bound to shake confidence. It was true that Herr Stresemann had assured them that from the point of view of foreign affairs nothing had changed in Germany. But Herr Stresemann would not be surprised if those who had confidence in a Germany with an orientation toward democracy wondered what to think of the Germany of to-day when the army was ruled as an independent power, where the great chiefs were nearly all men of the ancient regime, and where people did not promise to defend the Weimar constitution except by honouring the past and its symbols.

The changes that had occurred were not reasons for turning aside from the path they were pursuing, but they were grave reasons for treading prudently and with measured step. It need cause no surprise, moreover, in. circles that yesterday were favourably disposed, it was now being asked whether Germany was effectually disarmed. Officially, of course, Germany, was disarmed, and in many respects the official declaration corresponded to the reality. Beside what one sees there is what one does not see at the first glance, but discovers or guesses it For the next few years Germany, left to herself, appears incapable of conducting, on the Western front at least, offensive operations of a decisive character.

On the other hand her potential war power remains formidable. With a population approaching 70,000,000 and an industrial development that intensifies year by year, Germany could, even without an alliance, put in a few months millions of men on a war footing sufficiently instructed and powerfully equipped. Besides this, the restrictive provisions of the Treaty of Versailles relating to the manufacture of poison gas . or military aircraft do not and could not prevent a- development of the chemical industries and commercial aviation in such conditions ■that in a very short time Germany could transform the evil form of its activities into military activity. In short, we find after seven years of stubborn efforts in breaking the machinery of aggression that Germany possessed almost intact at the time of the Armistice, in its three elements of organisation, effectiveness, and material. But what they have not done and what it was not humanly possible to do is what Napoleon vainly attempted after Tilsit —to prevent millions of men disarmed by force and surrounded by peoples in arms from arming themselves anew some day, defensively or offensively. In the face of such facts two conclusions- present themselves. The first is the relative efficacy of measures of control; the second." that disarmament must lie general or it will not come at all; and it is-this that gives all the sigiinificance to the labours that have been proceeding for long months at Geneva for the assembly of the disarmament conference. It is to be the realisation of the ideal of peace that Belgium lias continually given her modest support.