Notes on the News Germany In Europe

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 6 December 1938, Page 10

Notes on the News Germany In Europe

Mr. 11. S. Hudson, Secretary of the l>ei>artmeut of Overseas Trade, says that British industry would be organized, if necessary, to tight German trade methods, not only in south-east-ern Europe, but in the markets of the world. Germany says she does not claim a monopoly of markets in central and south-east Euroiie. Germany is pursuing her "Drang nacli Osteu” (Road to the East) policy in a search for the resources of other countries—chemicals, grain, ores, timber, oil, cotton, coal, livestock. Nature, which has been niggardly with Germany in many ways, has lavished its treasures on her eastern neighbours. In Czechoslovakia, all along the Danube, and deep into the Soviet Ukraine, there are raw materials and food in abundance, which, the Reich leaders know, would meet their demand for a self-sufficient nation. Germany still imports 35 per cent, of the raw material and 20 per cent, of the food she consumes, in spite of extraordinary efforts to free herself from dependence on foreign supplies. In the possession of raw materials the Reich has an exportable surplus in coal, nitrates and potash only. As for food-growing ability, much of her soil is inferior. So the Reich’s leaders —seeking economic domination in some areas and in others much more—turu toward the east iu the hope of solving the problem. The countries Germany has in mind are Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and, ultimately, Soviet Ukraine. In 1937, Herr Hitler said: "If we had the riches of the Ukraine. . . Due of the "Drang nach Osteu” aims of Germany has always been economic penetration, and in tbe last two years it has become more intense. Dr. Hjalmar Scbacbt introduced a system which has helped his country to bring tbe Balkans uuder its domination as a market for German goods. In accordance with the Schaeht agreement, the Reich buys food and raw materials from these countries, the purchase price for which is spent only within Germany. A big percentage of these amounts is used up in supplying the Balkan countries with arms and ammunition. It is to counter this form of trading that Britain is now planning. What Is A Classic? A lively discussion lias taken place in England on statements of educationist** that the younger generation of students is unacquainted with the classics of English literature. This raises the question: What is a classic? And it is answered by the great literary critic Charles-Augustin Suiute-Beuve, as follows: "A classic, according to the usual dftinitiou, is an old author canonized ! by admiration, and an authority in his J particular style. The word classic was first used in this sense by the Romans. With them not all the citi- ! zens of tbe different classes were properly called classici, but only those I of the chief class, those who possessed | an income of a certain fixed sum. Those who possessed a smaller income were described by the term ‘infra classem,’ below tbe pre-eminent class. The word ‘classicus’ was used In a figurative sense by Aulus Gellius, and applied to writers; a writer of worth and distinction, a writer who is of account, has real property, and is not lost iu the proletariat crowd. . . . “At first the only true classics for the moderns were the ancients. The Greeks by peculiar good fortune and natural enlightenment of mind, had no classic® but themselves. They were at first the only classical authors for the Romans, who strove and contrived to Imitate them. The Romans in their turn had their classics, who became almost exclusively the classical authors of the centuries which followed. . . . “The idea of a classic implies something that has continuance and consistence, and which produces unity and tradition, fashions and transmits itself, and endures. . . ‘A true classic ... is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step. . . .”

Lacing Kealities The Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, says the Auglo-Italian Agreement t:ike s account of the new realities of the situation in Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa. Under the agreement‘the two Powers agree to a periodical exchange of information with regard to major prospective administrative movements or redistribution of their armed forces in their overseas territories in, or bordering on. the Mediterranean, the Red Sea-, and the Gulf of Aden, as well a® in Egypt, the Sudan. Italian East Africa British Somaliland. Kenya, Uganda and the northern part of Tanganyika. This exchange is to take place in January of each year through tlie naval, military, and air attaches in Loudon and Rome. The parties aKo agree to notify each other iu advance of any decision to provide new naval or air bases in the Mediterranean and in the Red Sea They agree also not to take certain sjiecified action against the Arabian States. Italy lias given an assurance that she has no territorial designs either iu Spain or iu the Balearic Isiaud.s. There i< also an understanding between the parties that the agreement in no way limits Italy’s freedom of action within • lie teims of i lie HomeBerlin axis. The Great Trek The laying of the foundation-stone of the Voortrckker centenary memorial mi Dingaan’s Day, December Hi, is responsible for a month’s political truce whir], will begin at midnight, says a report from Cape Town. For a time the Dutch and English settlers lived in peace and amity together, but the English efforts to alleviate ttie condition of, and finally emancipate, the slaves severed the two races. The Dutch settlers held the old Biblical notions about slavery, and they resented fiercely the law of 1833 emancipating all slaves throughout the CajH* Colony in 1834. The Boers at once determined to trek, to leave the colony which was under the jurisdiction of the English law, and find in the South African wilderness, where no human law prevailed, t'ocjd for their flocks and the pastoral freedom of Jacob and Abraham. The Boers would live their own lives in their own way. They had nothing In common with the Englishmen, and they wished for nothing in common. They were a primitive people, larm ing. hunting, reading the Bible, pious, sturdy, and independent: and the colonial government was by no means willing to see them leaving the fields and farms that they had colonized. But the Government was powerless: it tried, and tried in vain, to prevent this emigration. There was no ’aw :o prevent it. So, with their wagons, their Ljrses, their cattle and (heir sheep, their guns, and their few household goods, the hardy Boers struck out into the Intel ior and to the north-east in true patriarehinl fashion. The migration was known as the Great Trek. They founded a colony at Natal, and fought and baptized flic new colony in their own blood. The Zulu chief. Dingaan, who sold them the territory, murdered the Boer leader, Peter Re tief, and his 79 followers as soon u? the deed was signed. This was the beginning of the Boer hatred of the native races. To esciiT)e from British rule the Boers made subsequent treks, from Natal to the Orange Free State, to the Transvaal.