Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY. JUNE 14, 1939 INTERNATIONAL UNREST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 14 June 1939, Page 6

Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY. JUNE 14, 1939 INTERNATIONAL UNREST

SIR PHILLIP GIBBS has been asking searching questions in the English journal “ I ruth,” and the answers which he himself gives to them are perhaps not altogether adequate. For instance, he asks, “Why does Mr Chamberlain, who stood for peace at Munich, now call many nations to join him in an alliance, directed surely against

Germany? Why has the demo- ! cratic Press in England been so 1 utterly hostile to National Socialism ? ’ The answers, he says, "are to be found in the English character,” and in the fact that for a thousand years the people of England struggled to obtain freedom of action and speech. Of course what the eminent English publicist had in mind, when asking the above questions, was the possible domination of the Dictators and their myriad followers. But with the absorption of the Czechs by Germany, and of the Albanians by Italy, the Dictators’ acquisitive policies seem to have been suspended for the time being, although designs on Danzig are causing serious concern at present. Yet the Dictators have both expressed sentiments which would make the ordinary person think that they had never sponsored an acquisitive policy, or would do so in the future. Of course the restraining influences have been powerful, and apiong them must be reckoned Britain’s stupendous re-armament policy and the defensive preparations of France. A well-known journalist wrote, not long ago, “It gives me a good deal of pride and joy for the time being, at any rate—but one wonders what is going to happen, about next August, when the ! Furopean harvest is gathered in j and, as has so often happened in | the past, the armies have been ! free to march. “There can only be peace and quiet,” he added, “when the present psycho-pathetic ruling-group is discarded, and the nation stops chasing prestige, and settles down to looking after the things that really matter.”

Britain cannot do much more than she has done in the way of preventing strife, but she has at least given the Teutons some idea of the odds they will encounter if they deliberately plunge Europe into war. Apart from plain warnings by Ministers, Britain's rearmament plan should be a sufficient demonstration of her policy. That policy is in no sense provocative. but it is definitely preventive, and would become operative only in case any great Power, or set of such Powres, endeavoured to dominate the Continent by force. Such has been the proverbial English policy, under Elizabeth against Phillip of Spain, against Louis XIV of France, against Napoleon, and against the Kaiser Wilhelm 11. It would be so against the German and Italian Dictators, to-day, if they should try to carry their aggressive plans further. In the comparative security of her •sland-fastness, and with the formidable power of her Air Force, coupled with the Navy, Army, and Territorial Force, Britain would be a dangerous foe, whoever provoked her to action.

Unfortunately the situation in the Last is now causing additional anxiety owing to the bellicose attitude Japan has adopted. After a meeting of the Japanese Cabinet, an official spokesman stated that Japan’s patience was exhausted and further negotiations with Britain were useless.” The Japanese authorities have also announced that the blockade of Tientsin would commence to-day. Both the British and the French Concessions are affected. Heedless of the warning by the British Ambassador of the dangers of an Anglo-Japanese clash in .Tientsin, a Japanese Army spokesman has said the Army will never bury the hatchet unless the authorities in the British Concession reconsider their attitude and co-operate in the construction of a new order in East Asia and abandon policies which are declared to favour the Chinese. The position is the more disquieting because—whether by a coincidence or otherwise—it has developed at the same time as German troops are concentrating on the Polish frontier and there has been a provocative demonstration by Nazi storm-troopers in Danzig. The demonstrators included 6000 troops from East Prussia—said to be the first time ■nich troops had exercised in Danzig. As the British Foreign Secretary emphasised a day or (wo ago. “the complex nature of f he problem demands the utmost measures of patience and restraint : f most serious and dangerous ''onsequences are to be avoided.” Similar comment would apply to ’he regrettable situation at Tientsin.