Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 4 July 1939, Page 4

Timely Topics

| “With calm and reason on both t sides,” says “The Times,” “the ques- [ tion of Danzig is essentially one 4 which is capable

-1 CALL FOR CALM | AND REASON.

of solution by negotiation. But it would be impos-

I sible to prevent a general conflagra- | tion from following the outbreak of I war between Poland and Germany, t There is an uneasy feeling in Poland I —amounting indeed almost to a conI viction—that, once Germany were ? definitely installed in Danzig, she f would use her position there to exerI cise economic and political pressure.

♦ It would be so easy to fortify the place i and dominate the neighbouring har--1 hour of Gdynia which Poland has | built .for herself on Polish soil. And | a fortified Danzig, together with the 1 newly-acquired port of Memel, would |go a long way toward making Ger|many supreme in the Baltic. Without lany doubt the sympathies and the inI terests of the smaller Baltic States | are united with those of the Polish | people in theff determination to • maintain an international status for ! .the Free City.” ? « Jf W * i “Germany has made giant strides 4 towards hegemony,” writes Mr. £isley J Huddleston, in the “Contemporary i Review.” “The prob-

FRENCH DIPLOMACY.

lem, the only problem r . that matters, is seen ,in France, as I trust

, 1U J. Ud * V-*. elsewhere, to be the problem of setting bounds to Germany’s 'ambitions. With the goodwill of Italy—if it can still be obtained —it is possible to counteract whatever is illegitimate and aggressive in Germany’s Central and Eastern European policy; for with' Italy we are assured of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, and Rumania so far ' as she is still economically free. The strength of such a combination lies in the fact that it need not be unfriendly to Germany, and would co-opehate with Germany as, let us hope, with ~ France and England, for the consolidation of a peaceful and prosperous Europe. I would not imply that; there is anything like unanimity in French diplomatic thought, but I believe .that it is on these lines that most people with diplomatic knowledge, -and who are free from diplomatic‘ideology/are now thinking. They start, ;as they must start, with the postulate that • everything must be subordinated to the necessity of setting bounds to Germany’s ambitions.”