UNITY OF PURPOSE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 21 December 1936, Page 4

UNITY OF PURPOSE

LAST Saturday there was printed a cablegram which said the British Foreign Secretary, when questioned in the House of Commons in regard to “the German campaign for the restoration of colonies said that he had nothing to add to his statement of 9th December, in which he denied that Britain intended handing over the mandates.” Mr Eden was speaking of the ex-German territories which are mandated to Britain; he was not referring to the ex-German territories which are held by Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, under mandate; but by his speech the British Minister has brought British policy into line with the policy of the three Dominions, in the matter of the political status and administration of the ex-German colonies. Long ago—in 1919, to be exact —Mr Hughes of Australia intimated clearly to President Woodrow Wilson, at Geneva, that there was no possibility that the Dominions would return to Germany the territories which they had captured from her during the Great War, and in the Versailles Treaty there was incorporated an Article which said, “Germany renounces in favour of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions.” It is evident from that, that Germany can “demand” nothing in the matter of her lost colonies. She may appear as a supplicant before the League of Nations, and plead for the return of her lost colonial territories, but she can demand nothing, because she lost them in a war which she wilfully created because she imagined she would be quickly victorious. The Dominions i long since incorporated in their territories the ex-German colonies which they had captured. Now the British Foreign Secretary denies that the British Government has any intention of parting with the mandates which if holds over ex-German territories. So that Britain and the Dominions are agreed as to their policy in relation to territories captured from Germany; and the sooner that policy is accepted in Berlin, the sooner will Anglo-Ger-man relations be placed upon a satisfactory basis.