COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 94, 21 March 1939, Page 7

COMPULSORY SERVICE.

URGED BY PRESS.

LONDON, March 20.

A large section of the Press is advocating compulsory national service, which the Daily Express declares is the big political issue ol the immediate future. Important supporters of the Government are bringing pressure to bear for the formation of a compulsory register. Mr Chamberlain’s speech denouncing Nazi tactics and declaring that he would not sacrifice liberty for the sake of peace, has stimulated national service recruiting, particularly in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Leeds. Meanwhile, though speculation continues as regards Rumania, the Daily Telegraph learns that Turkey definitely does not desire a common frontier with Germany, and is prepared to resist German occupation of the shores of tho Black Sea. Turkey, however, does not believe that such an invasion is imminent, as Herr Hitler must protect his flanks before he makes such a move. This involves the practcial absorption of Hungary, which step, even with the consent of the Hungarian Nazis further complicates the position of Italy in the ltome-Berlin axis. SIGNS MISREAD.

The Times, commenting on the situation, says that the Germans are misreading the signs of the times when they attribute the present collapse of international confidence to the other nations’ Machiavellian calculations and hidden motives for aggression. The seizure of Czeehslovakia, says the paper, is the sole cause lor despair of a peaceful settlement, which, with its accompanying maltreatment is more disastrous because the perpetrator was one of four who undertook to preserve Czechoslovakia in its new form. Europe is driven back upon stark force. Nothing else counts. It was not a happy moment lor Herr Hitler to offer a guarantee to Rumania in exchange for all her produce, Sho instantly manned her frontiers. All the smaller countries fear German protection. The suppression of Bohemia’s liberties is a crime. Germany totally misunderstands the British, American, French and Russian refusal to recognise it as expansion. National Socialism means tyranny, cruelty and paganism. The reaction to such a move is spontaneous. Britain has opposed encircling Germany, but Germany’s methods have made encirclement inevitable.