The Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1938. On the Brink

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 212, 8 September 1938, Page 6

The Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1938. On the Brink

To-day’s news of feverish military preparations on Germany’s western frontiers must make everyone realise the extreme gravity of the situation in Europe. When such sober newspapers as the London Daily Telegraph and Times report war preparations by Germany and France on so vast a sealo their information must be accepted as reliable aaid eantiot be dismissed as scaremongering.

There can bo little doubt now that Germany will invade Czechoslovakia even at the cost of war if she believes she can emerge victorious from the struggle. The whole trend of events during the past few days seems to show that the Sudeten leaders do not want an offer from Czechoslovakia which they will be compelled to accept because of its reasonableness. What they—or the Nazi leaders who arc backing them—desire is an excuse to cross the frontier. A grave responsibility rests on the Fuehrer. At flic moment, despite the fact that a very large proportion of his own people do not want war, he has it in his power to plunge Europe—and the world—into the most terrible conflict in history.

There are signs that Britain is unostentatiously preparing. This week the Mediterranean fleet received powerful additions to its strength at Gibraltar. These were reported to be for the pm-posc of dealing- with interferences wdth British shipping by the Spanish insurgents, but obviously they are for the benefit of Italy—a veiled hint to that very unstable partner in the liome-Berlin axis that her highly vulnerable coast-line would be at the mercy of the combined navies of Britain and France if she moved to the assistance of Germany.

It is not scaremongering to say that the issue of peace or war hangs in the balance, and one man’s word may set the world aflame. If that catastrophe were to overtake us, what could be Now Zealand’s position? The New Zealand Govex-n----ment’s plans for defence are reassuring, but not completely satisfying; in fact, they are reassuring only because they afford evidence that the Dominion’s legislators are genuinely concerned over the international situation. Most communities in the world to-day have recently experienced a sufficiency of alai-ms and forebodings to convince them that nothing would be so comforting as a consciousness of armed strength. What, it may be asked, is actually the extent of tho Dominion’s preparedness for an emergency? Have arrangements for the manufacture of munitions been carried to tho point at which continual production could be maintained over an indefinite period?

It was recently stated that an organisation in the South Island has been busy planning air raid precautions, but so far there is nothing to show that this is a Dominion-wide movement encouraged by the Government. As matters stand most New Zealand civilians would not know tho difference between an air raid warning and tho work-a-day factory whistles. Perhaps this kind of defence is not a matter of such urgency in New Zealand as in Great Britain, where training of the Civil Air Guard has already begun, but events may move so quickly if an aggressor nation strikes that little time may be left in any part of the world for cool and thorough preparation. An. efficient state of preparedness on the part of peacefulminded nations, and in particular a Britisli Commonwealth of Nations, well armed and determined to resist aggression, is essential to the peace of the world for a few years at least.