Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 28 November 1939, Page 4

Timely Topics

“In these hours of destiny the Friends of the German People’s Front in London, speaking on behalf of the democratic Opposi-

GERMANDEMOCRATS.

tion within Germany, feel bound to proclaim their solidarity

with the British people who are firmly resolved to defend the national integrity and independence of Poland, the latest victim of the Nazi aggression.” is a message from the Friends of the German People’s Front in London. J ‘•The Friends of the Gorman People’s Front acknowledge the right of ' self-determination for all nations,

• great and small, and in particular for t those who are either oppressed or ’menaced by Hitler; in doing so they fact as a part of the rapidly-growing | German Opposition. | “Already the carrying through of I Hitler’s aggressive designs on Poland |is being impeded by passive resistf ance, strike actions, desertions from | the army, and, demonstrations ’’ » h

“The British may not be a more adaptable race than any other, but we like to thjpk we ax’e,.and already after only a few

NATIONAL MASQUERADE.

days’ practice most of us are carrying

our gas-masks as if we had been born with them,’ says the “Glasgow Herald.” “Not all the population are yet memory perfect, as the shelves of any lost property office will testify, and there are others who arc prepared to back their opinions by retusing to carry their masks at all. “Yet if most of us are alike in our assiduous attachment to this new article of personal luggage, there is infinite variety in the means employed for holding the mask. “The fact of having to carry the container by a piece of string as if it were a pound of tea, both adds to the risk of its being put down and forgotten, and also offends a deep-i'ooted masculine prejudice.”

“In a message to the German people,” said Colonel Wedgwood, M.P., in the House of Commons, “we do not

MESSAGE TO GERMAN PEOPLE.

want to explain that the British Government was always a per-

fect Government. “What we wanted to explain to them was—-(a) that the Hitler Government was not a perfect Government; and tb) if they would get rid of Hitler, what they would get from us. “You cannot carry on propaganda in any country unless you study what you are after. “I believe that the Government of this country has one thing only in view, and that is to get rid of Hitlerism for all time'from Europe, and we want to get the Germans to lend a hand in doing that. “Wo ought to state our case quite clearly to Germany, to let them know that we have no quarrel with the German people, that the result of this war shall not alter the boundaries of Germany in any respect, that there shall not be another Versailles, but that there shall bo in tile future a federation of all the Powers pooling their defensive forces and combining together, not in a League of Nations, but in a federation. That is the aim and object of every thinking man.”