THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1935 TENSION IN THE SAAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22003, 9 January 1935, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1935 TENSION IN THE SAAR

The first votes in the Saar plebiscite li'ave been past —by those whose duties next Sunday will preclude their going to the poll. What will happen before the last vote is cast? —and what after that'] It is not too much to say that the whole civilised world will have its eyes on the Saar in the next few days, with good reason. The situation in Europe is critical; encouraging at the moment, but charged with explosive possibilities. These possibilities attach mainly to Franco-German relations, the chief friction-point in European politics since the war; and these relations have found a particular focus in the Saar. There, by order of the peace treaty and under supervision of the League, France has been exercising mining-rights in the coalfields to recoup herself for destruction wrought in the mines of the Pas de Calais by the German armies during the war. The political status of the territory was necessarily altered to fit this handing 'over of the mines to France ; a temporary change, to run for fifteen years, whereupon the inhabitants were to say by plebiscite which of three courses they favoured —continuation of the League regime, return to German sovereignty, union with France. This plebiscite is due, arranged, begun. It will not be the calm proceeding it was once expected to be. A year or so ago—the rise of Hitler to power made all the difference —the united Saar population. living in a quiet political backwater and content to wait until 1935 for reincorporation in a venerated Fatherland, found it3elf suddenly thrust into the arena where FrancoGerman fears and rivalries were bitterly at odds. Before that unhappy day there was a chance of return to Germany without waiting for the plebiscite. This was diplomatically proposed and discussed, the idea being to let the plebiscite, taken at the due date, confirm a settlement that everybody expected would mean repossession by Germany in an atmosphere of general goodwill. But the Stresemann-Briand period of amicable diplomacy passed without that achievement, and soon the Saar was a bone of savage contention, thanks to the Nazi programme and its reactions abroad. How this came about is clear. Hitler's National Socialism is essentially militant. It has become more national, rabidly so, and less socialist. Its all-German-and-only-German dogma, more and more intolerant and aggressive, reawakened French fears, dragged Germany out of the League, and instituted a reign of terror throughout the Reich. Like Stresemann, Hitler worked for a German settlement of the Saar question in anticipation of the plebiscite, as a means of enhancing his prestige ; but the French, bereft of Briand and filled' with apprehension of this Hitlerised Germany, were not disposed to acquiesce. At a bound, the Saar became a frontier region of quarrel. The worst features of Franco-German animosity reappeared—around it and within. And, of course, as nothing more could be done by way of anticipating the plebiscite, the date of which was approaching, this became the centre of malevolent attention. Driven by Nazi intolerance out of Germany, many having cause to hate his rule found a refuge in the Saar amid its characteristically German conditions. They added their weight to the reluctance of a large number of Saarlanders to welcome there a Nazi regime. Immediately, in evident anxiety about the vote, Hitler initiated a movement of vigorous persuasion quite in the Nazi manner. National feeling on the subject of the Saar was worked up, throughout the Reich and in the region itself. Demonstrations were organised ; Nazi leaders, including Hitler himself, made inflammatory speeches in districts adjoining the frontier; propaganda by wireless was incitmgly carried on; and, in line with party amalgamations in the Reich, where politics had been compulsorily given one colour, a new German party (the Deutsche Front) was formed to absorb in the Saar various political organisations, now welded as a Nazi unit. In the process, which has been steadily continued in spite of official professions of neutrality made in the name of the German Government, reckless utterance and intrigue have been frequent, on the word of reputable witnesses resident in the territory. Reporting to the League, the British chairman of the Governing Commission (Mr. Geoffrey Knox) has declared that "the National Socialist Party has been making every effort to gain control of the whole public life of the Saar. It has endeavoured to attain its object of setting up a de facto Government side by side with the legal Government. . . . The National Socialist Party is carrying on more or less unscrupulous activities in all spheres of public and private life in the Saar, waging an incessant campaign of threats, denunciations and disguised boycotting against the inhabitants of the territory suspected of not sharing its political ideas.

. . . The result has been an increase in acts of violence and terrorism."

Instances have been supplied by him in convincing detail. Until the international force recently arrived to safeguard the "freedom, secrecy and trustworthiness of the voting," he was dependent on the services of 1000 local police, practically unarmed —and the weakness of this force is accentuated by his report that some of them, dismissed for breaches of discipline and even common-law offences, have since been given official employment in Germany. That he should have to be given a bodyguard, including men from Scotland Yard, emphasises the sorry outcome of the "patriotic piety" that seeks to coerce the Saar into acceptance of Nazi rule. All recent action of the French Government, it is agreed by competent judges, has been strictly correct. But the activities of the Deutsche Front threaten, despite precautions to make the plebiscite a free expression of considered choice, to rob the voting of the qualities necessary to give the League a reliable basis on which to decide the Saar's political future.