THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1936 GERMANY AND COLONIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22359, 4 March 1936, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1936 GERMANY AND COLONIES

When it is said that a German campaign is in full 'swing for the reinvestment of Germany with the prestige of a colonial Power the news need not be taken to indicate any special activity on the part of the Government. The campaign is undertaken by the German Colonial Society, rightly described as a private organisation. It evidently has some official approval, but so far, probably for reasons related to the ambitious efforts of rearmament and the economic situation created by the cost of these, this approval has not gone the length of providing funds for so expensive a venture as the reestablishment of a colonial domain on the traditional German model. Activity of this sort, in Germany and elsewhere, has begun with private mercantile enterprises that was so when merchants of Hamburg first exploited islands in the Pacific, before Bismarck grudgingly gave up his "no colony" principles—and only after an interval has the Government accepted responsibility for organised occupation involving national outlay. The German Colonial ISociety is not yet assured of so practical an official interest. In November last this society was hopefally "waiting for Herr Hitler to press the button to set the machinery in motion." Its plans were then allegedly complete, but the LeaderChancelloir, intent on other things, has not yet pressed the button. There have been demands for the return of the expropriated oversea territories, these demands being made in the official press for Germans to read and in mass demonstrations where much fervid oratory has been expended. This programme has been lately intensified ; the Nazi Colonial Department, about three weeks ago, inaugurated the series of public lectures now proceeding as part of the campaign, and at a "monster meeting" in Berlin the Army, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of the Interior were represented. Nevertheless, all this has been for merely home consumption. No foreign Power has been served with a summons to show cause why it should not disgorge territory that before the war was German.

"The time will come," said Dr. Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, in an address to 20,000 Nazis in January, ''when Germany must demand her colonies back," and he talked with gusto of "moments when one has to take the sword and cut the knot." He was ardently fulfilling his departmental function, yet was careful lo speak of a demand in the indefinite future. A day or two ago he was on a kindred subject, the need for a redistribution of the world's raw materials, and was moved to say that the production centres were chiefly British colonies and the consumption centres chiefly Europeanyet he resisted the temptation to make a claim on any of these colonies, contenting himself with declamation against the political and economic blundering that hinders "sane exchange." It. would be wrong to think that German desires for the regaining of lost colonial territories and the acquisition of others is not serious. They are deadly serious. However, the fomenting of these desires is at present part of the rabidly nationalist propaganda now being pursued, and it is clearly intended to appeal to a sense of prestige rather than of economic necessity. The latter can be 'satisfied with commercial access to foodstuffs and raw materials, and for inability to use available access Germany has mainly to thank, not colonial dispossession, but concentration on extravagant military expenditure. It is now known that this has amounted in the past three years to upwards of £1,000,000,000, while an acute food shortage has distressed housewives and sent Herr Himmler's Black Guards to train in readiness to suppress a working-class revolt. Plainly Dr. Goebbels has told the people that "Germans must temporarily tighten their belts" in order to reassert military sovereignty. He knows that with limited financial resources they cannot sacrifice to get armaments and at the same time wax fat. And he knows that an immediate return of former colonial possessions, occupied by alien native peoples, would create heavy liabilities. The argument of national prestige bulks large, but prestige of this sort would have to be paid for, and the exchequer and foreign credit are both embarrassingly low. Just now, moreover, Germany has no population surplus to send to colonies; Hitler is bent on building up an "Aryan" stock at home, and those he wants to send out of the country he would not tolerate in any oversea expansion of the Reich. It sounds well to say that, now the war is over and ought to be forgotten, the thing to do is to put things back where they were before, but the words are hollow. Can everything be as it was before? That is impossible. Even if it were possible, ought everything to be as it was before 1 German brutality to helpless natives in the Cameroons, for instance? Germany's colonial record is not all bad, but too much of it, on the confession of German officials themselves, is so horrible that pleas for colonial reinstatement awaken protesting echoed.