THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1933 GERMANY AND COLONIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21521, 19 June 1933, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1933 GERMANY AND COLONIES

The case put to the League by Dr. Hugenberg for tho return to Germany of her African colonies is unconvincing. No surpriso is occa* sioned by the statement of the German delegates at Geneva that it does not conform to their opinion. Their disavowal of it, however, does not dispose of it, as presumably its presentation in the form of a memorandum alleging a national ! claim will necessitate consideration and reply; and whatever' may be ! done in that way, even if it be a | cogent dismissal of the claim, is not j likely to end the agitation. This has j been active for many years. Almost j every German condemnation of the ' terms of the Versailles Treaty has included a protest against the forfeiture of colonial possessions. In 1926 Herr Kulz, then Minister of the Interior and formerly head of Germany's Colonial Office, issued a | statement closely resembling the one now made. He asserted that his country's return to the ranks of colonial Powers was "a matter of right and honour," and that upon Germany's resumption of "full political control" of colonial territory depended the solution of the reparation problem : her national creditors, in his opinion, would suffer unless she were given this. Later in that year Herr Stresemann made at Geneva a statement to the same effect, adding an assertion that the loyalty shown to Germany by the native peoples under her colonial rule proved her perfect fitness to govern such territories. Another demand of the kind was made in 1929, when a German memorandum dealing with the question was handed by Dr. von Kuhlmann to the British Ambassador in Paris. Last year another Chancellor, Herr von Papen, bluntly expressed the aspiration of Germany to regain at least some of her lost colonies. Recently this desire has had vehement utterance in the policy speeches of Hitlerism. There have been, it is true, some disclaimers of the desire. Dr. von Kuhlmann's action was censured officially in Berlin, and one Chancellor, Dr. Mueller, openly renounced colonial policy and ambitions—although with unconscious humour he gave as his reason the alleged fact that Germany, unlike other nations, was no longer engaged in exploitation. But the desire persists. Even if the League replies, as it well may, that the matter is one for the Allied and Associated Powers, it will continue. At each successive putting of the case it will have to be decided on its merits, conceivably changing with circumstances. At present it is not appreciably stronger than when first advanced, and then the arguments against it were overwhelming. Dr. Hugenberg's reference to Germany as compelled to fight, under Hitler's guidance, against destruction by other Western "nations, is the sort of rubbish that Nazi spokesmen have used as a plea for popular support in Germany. It will not produce much effect at Geneva, where memories of long and patient aid of Germany have irrefutable records to sustain them. And the assertion that Germany "refuses to be destroyed by the lower type of humanity developing among Western peoples" can only provoke a distasteful answer, if it be deemed worth any. The memorandum is doubly fallacipus in its piteous appeal to be saved from a conspiracy of destruction that does not exist, save in. the mind of Nazi demagogues, and in its assertion that a German colonial empire in Africa will make possible the carrying out of works and enterprises there that otherwise cannot be achieved. Knowledge of political and economic developments in Europe and of happenings in what was German Africa prevents acceptance of this portion of the memorandum as sober argument. Germany's record in that territory is so terrible an indictment of brutal disregard for the welfare of its people that the idea of useful enterprises there under a restored German regime is almost unthinkable. "Heartless dragooning" was Mr. E. D. Morel's description of the sort of care shown—and in many things he was an eager apologist for Germany. "To exterminate a native race" was Professor Bonn's summary, given to the Colonial Institute before the war, of his country's aim in German West Africa. There is too much evidence of inhuman oppression—too much of the "lower types of humanity" attitude —in that scandalous past for it to be all forgotten. But what .if the Germany, "without space," requires new areas for settlement and gives undertakings of better behaviour ? It will be time enough to weigh the undertakings when the alleged need of space is proved. Germany for some time will have ample room at home. An authoritative German' pamphlet on population jdmitted twenty years ago that no emigrant outlets were then needed, and since then the losses by war have not been made up. At present the density of Germany's population is far below that of many countries, and scarcely half of that of England, while in the marked urbanisation of its people, due to manufacturing enterprise, .is an indication that the settlement of waste spaces by any surplus now existent by reason of abnormal conditions is hardly likely to be a success. But Germany's colonies were never used as population outlets. It has been noted that there have been usually more Germans in Paris than there were in all the German colonies put together. When Germans go abroad they prefer to go to settled lands; 125,000 left the Fatherland in five years before the war, and only 150 of them made homes under the German fiag. This habit will not be changed by any sudden acquisition of territory overseas. Dr. Hugenberg's case is too weak for Geneva to do more, than pigeon-hole it for reference years hence..