MANDATED TERRITORIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22401, 23 April 1936, Page 10

MANDATED TERRITORIES

In the reply of Mr. Thomas to the brief debate in the House of Commons on the question of mandated territories some essential facts have been stated in the name of the British Government. Among these facts is a matter of German history that ought to be borne in mind whenever the claim of Germany to have her colonies returned is under consideration : these colonies were never regarded by Germany as lands into which her surplus population should be sent. They were never so used. In the years before the war there were more Germans resident in Paris than in all the German colonies taken together ; and to-day there are more Germans living in the mandated territory of Tanganyika than were there when it avrs German East Africa. Naturally, in the absence of any Nazi policy to place white unemployed in oversea colonies —the Government has declared that a colonial empire doe? not enter into the National Socialist scheme of things—this earlier neglect to people them is remembered against the claim. When the actual German treatment of these outlying territories is further known to have been ruthlessly regardless of the good of their native inhabitants, who were compelled in some instances to devote themselves to'soldiering on the German model and in others were commercially exploited to feed German industries with raw materials, the case for resumption by Germany is seen to be bad. Nor can it be argued that Germany is now compulsorily excluded from obtaining raw materials in these lands. By returning to tho League she can become fully entitled to enjoy, as the Covenant provides, equally with other members, all opportunities for trade and commerce. Even without that title,. Germany is not absolutely denied ordinary commercial access to their resources. It is contrary to fact to assume, as the German claim does, that this access is dependent on a return of the mandate. On the other hand, there are sufficient reasons for objecting to that retuin, and Mr. Thomas is fully justified in declaring that no step in this direction will be taken by the British Government unless the whole question of the future of the mandated territories be reviewed and every mandatory State be consulted.