THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1935 THE SAAR PLEBISCITE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22005, 11 January 1935, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1935 THE SAAR PLEBISCITE

In further proof of the need for special precautions to keep order in the Saar at the time of the plebiscite, serious clashes have occurred between Nazis and Communists there. The occasion is instructive. It was the demonstrative welcome given by Nazis to voters arriving from America. This influx is due to practically world-wide Nazi efforts to swell the vote for a return of the territory to Germany. Nothing less than an overwhelming majority for this desire can satisfy Hitler's ambition for a popular verdict enhancing his prestige; nothing less can justify a League decision to hand the Saar back. A considerable minority in any of the eight districts, into which the territory has been divided for the plebiscite, will have to be taken into account; it will provide reason why that district, at least, shall not be forthwith restored to Germany. The vote is exercisable by all persons, without distinction of sex, more than 20 years old at the date of the voting and resident in the territory at the date of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, June 28. 1919. This both limits and extends the list of possible voters—cutting out many now resident in the Saar and including many that have since gone abroad. It was long ago seen that the compilation of the list might present difficulties. For one thing, where was the line to be drawn between residents and visitors among the persons in the Saar on the crucial date 1 ? There were Frenchmen, for instance, who entered with the army of occupation in 1919; the German Government, which for some time has been registering persons in Germany entitled to vote, has been equally watchful against possible French attempts to get these Frenchmen put on the official list. This list, with all available census and other records required to establish it, has been since 1922 the studious care of M. Bonzon, a Swiss subject, as Provisional Records Commissioner for the Saar Plebiscite, and all relevant documents are safely deposited under League protection. The district tribunals, provided with such data, are to decide dismites as to individual rights to vote. In all these facts is an implication that there will be an intense eacrerness to vote, except in rare instances, and current event's confirm the forecast. No ballot anywhere has been more ardently anticipated than this, and none in which such strenuous efforts have been made to comb the world for votes.

The League Council and the Saar Governing Commission are declared by these events to have been wise in anticipating this eagerness. But for their alertness, reaching a clirftax in the mobilising of the international force, a grave conflict would have been precipitated in the region, with far-spreading disturbance. They evidently were better aware than an indifferent world of the risks to be run as the date for the plebiscite drew near. What they could not see was that the recent rise of Hitler would put an extraordinary strain on arrangements for the vote. A glance at the comparative strengths of political parties in the Saar in years gone by and at changes in the past two years is enough to impress the suddenness of this development. In 1922 the Saar was given, in response to agitation in the region, a sort of local parliament, the Landesrat—an advisory body of limited powers, convened by and working under the Governing Commission. At the beginning its 30 members, chosen by election, were distributed thus: Centre Party (Catholic), 16; Social Democrats, 5 ; German People's Party, 4 ; German Democratic Party, 1 ; Communists, 2: Land and Agricultural Union, 2. In 1932, when Hitler's National Socialists were becoming organised, the distribution was: Centre Party, 14; Communists, 8: Social Democrats, 3: National Socialists, 2; German Saarlanders' People's Party, 2 ; German Economic Party, 1. At the end of that year the Nazis (National Socialists) were violently active and rapidly increasing. They carried their propaganda into the Saar, by various means inciting prejudice against the Governing Commission and the local police, and forming military units which drilled, marched, motored, studied map-reading and signalling and the use of weapons. The Governing Commission had to take repressive action or lose its authority. It

banned these activities sib it was bound to do. In its present efforts to repress demonstrations it is continuing li conflict thrust upon it and made doubly serious because of feeling associated with the plebiscite.

In the course of the two years the party-political position has altered in alignment with changes in the Reich. The Centre Party has dissolved. Most of its members have joined the Deutsche Front, the new German party absorbing all other parties save the Communists and smaller units, and early last year becoming identified with the Nazis. This alignment leaves the Nazi Deutsche Front and the Communists in serried opposition, with an outcome of which, the clashes now reported are typical. Toward neither host can the Governing Commission be lenient. Each is an enemy of the peace. But while the international force is dealing with these outbreaks, occasioned by the influx of voters and the welcoming demonstration, the question of how the trial of strength at the polls will fare is one for conjecture. The Deutsche Front, swayed by Nazi influence, seems to embrace a clear majority of the inhabitants and probably of the voters. A doubtful element exists in the nonNazi Catholics, apprehensive of Hitler's policy in spite of his recent and apparently tactful permission of certain religious liberties in Germany. With this possible opposition to the Saar's return to Germany, and preference for a continuance of the League's regime, must be reckoned the unbending choice of that course by the Communists, numbering between an eighth find a sixth of the inhabitants, according to recent estimates. Some smaller sections, including thousands of Jews, seem likely to swell this vote. For union with France a merely negligible vote is expected. But not even an approximate forecast of the result can be ventured. Least of all is the Nazi vehemence to be taken as a guide. It may mean either confidence or anxiety—an assertion of real influence by typical Nazi methods or a fear lest the vote favouring the Saar's return to Germany should fall short of the desired emphasis of w sweeping majority.