THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1933 THE MAP OF EUROPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21579, 25 August 1933, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1933 THE MAP OF EUROPE

Behind the political unrest vexing Europe, and incidentally retarding world peace and prosperity, is anxiety about the map. The Great War made obsolete much of the atlas. Boundaries were altered, new names of countries appeared, some countries literally vanished, all in token of changes written by the treaty-makers. Geographers had to be unusually busy in tasks of which they had almost forgotten the knack. So considerable were some of the changes in this register of the territorial limits of nations that no great gift of prophecy was required to foretell dissatisfaction. It came quickly, and has grown. This does not mean that the work of redrawing frontiers was badly done. No man, no body of men, is equal to the achievement of making perfectly working divisions. Political geographyj to be worth anything at all, must take account of history—a subject of which political history is but a part, often the least important. In the course of the "centuries, humankind has made light of frontiers, save in times of acute conflict. Peoples migrate and commingle in spite of laws, sometimes because of them, and more or less a racial intermixture is always in progress. Hence the impossibility of keeping boundaries permanently in accord with fact and desire. It has been so since the map-making work done with unusual care at Versailles. Two bodies of opinion emerge from the medley of national comment. On one hand is a measure of satisfaction with the new order and a wish to have it regarded as sacrosanct and immutable; on the other is a continual girding at it. France, Poland, the countries of the Little Entente, for instance, will not hear of revision, for reasons that are in scant need of explanation. Germany is as obdurately bent on an undoing of what was done. Yet to dismiss the question as merely one of quarrel between the victors and the vanquished would be a mistake. It goes deeper than that. This matter of the map cannot be dissociated from the trouble about disarmament. "When the two categories of nations are considered—one eager to see the map untouched, the other equally eager for revision —it is easy to understand w T hy one contains those content to have facilities for war reduced to the limits of defence and the other those demanding liberty to arm to the utmost. In the last resort, frontiers can be held or broken only with weapons, and until there is prevalent a spirit of fully mutual discussion this importance of weapons will not be outgrown. No general disarmament is feasible unless, as a precedent condition, a map acceptable to all is drawn. In the absence of that spirit, the best that can be done is to frame, and in part impose, a division that is in practical accord with major facts —a working compromise in a region of human affairs where compromise is the only possible solution of an ever-present problem. Take the existing position. Germany, under a persistent sense of grievance, is all for treaty revision. Loss of territory, more than anything else, is the ground of complaint. Hitler's appeal to national sentiment, with his studied attempt to include Austria in the scope of the German Reich and his daring seizure of influence in the Free City of Danzig, to say nothing of lost colonies, is prompted and acclaimed on this ground. It is true that he has disavowed "frontier changes at the expense of others," but he has made no secret of the ]£azi ambition to include under German rule "those who belong to our blood and speak our language," and has spoken ominously of building bridges between "Germans inside and outside the frontiers." In effect, his aim is really to remake the map, and the methods he adopts are. those of forcible pressure. That he has refused to give a welcome to all proposals for frank discussion of the issue is the worst feature of his aggressive policy. On this aspect of treaty revision, Sir Austen Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons last month put the reasonable view. He pointed out that Germany's case for territorial revision, as for other claims, could be deemed cogent only if she convinced the world that a generally satisfactory readjustment would end her agitation. Every fact, over a period long antedating the war, indicates that she is determined not to accept this condition. Nevertheless, this ought not to preclude revision, conducted wisely within the provisions of the treaties themselves and in accord with facts. Unfortun.itely there is justification for Mr. Wickham Steed's comment—"lmperfect though the peace treaties are, we should not hate their imperfections more than we love peace itself." That fairly describes nn attitude that is standing to-day in the way of revision, attitude that a Hitlerised Germany is obviously resolved to maintain. As soon ns there is admission that the territorial adjustments made as an outcome of the war are more righteous than those obtaining before, a basis of readjustment will bo available. Until then, there will persist an uncomfortable conviction that, under the guise of treaty revision, strategic designs inimical to peace are being pursued by the complainants. No political map can be made for all time, but alteration should proceed with a view to conserve clear national rights and thus to keep stable the territorial divisions that are a prime essential, within the sphere of practical affairs, of enduring peace.