IMPOSED DOMINATION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 94, 21 March 1939, Page 8

IMPOSED DOMINATION

DISASTERS OF PAST. GERMANY MAY YET REGRET. (United Press Association —;By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received March 21, 1.10 p.m. RUGBY, March 20. In the course of li is statement in the House of I .on Is. .Lord Halifax reviewed the Central European situation and said that the Government was placing itself in consultation with other Governments on this question, and would continue to do all in its power for these unhappy people. Finally, the Minister spoke with regret of the frustration of the effort? to create a better British-German understanding. The British people had not been backward in recognising some of the mistakes of Versailles, but whenever there had been a chance of making progress Germany had taken some action which had made it impossible. Now the initiative of Munich had been frustrated by Germany s action which had given a profound shock to world opinion, and it was difficult to see when the initiative could be resumed.

“These affairs raise a wide issue and the events in Czechoslovakia require the Bntisii toovernincnt and every free people to think again on their attitude in these matters. The British Government has not failed to draw a moral from these events and has lost no time in placing itself in close practical consultation not only with the Dominions, but with other Governments concerned upon the issues that have suddenly been made so plain,” Lord Halifax said.

“ACTION MAY BE REGRETTED.” “It is not possible as yet fully to appreciate the consequences of German action. History records many attempts to impose domination on Europe, but these attempts sooner or later have terminated in disaster for those who made them, and it has never, in the long run, proved possible to stamp out the spirit of free peoples,” the Minister proceeded. “If history is any judge the German people may yet regret the action that has been taken in their name against the people of Czechoslovakia. Twenty years ago the people of Czechoslovakia recovered their liberty with the support and encouragement of the greater part ot the world. They have now been deprived of it by violence.

“In the course of their long history this will not be the first time that this tenacious, valiant and industrious people have lost their independence, but they have never lost that which is the foundation of independence—love of liberty, and, just as after the War, the world watched the emergence of the Czech nation, so it will watch to-day their efforts to preserve intact their cultural identity and, more important, their spiritual freedom under the last and cruel blow ol which they have been the victims.” BRITISH ATTITUDE CLEAR.

A Press Association report says that Lord Halifax stated: “1 think we have left Germany in no doubt as to the British attitude, although I don’t cherish exaggerated hopes of what may be the effect. Tt is abundantly rigiit that such protests should be registered.”