"GERMANY ON GUARD"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23165, 11 October 1938, Page 10

"GERMANY ON GUARD"

By his speech at Saarbrucken, Herr Hitler lias given occasion for further thought about his attitude to international peace. Taken in conjunction with his adulation of Italian and Japanese policy, this speech provides little reason for confidence in his professions of goodwill. Its substance is a challenge, not an overture of friendship. By his own strength, he says, he has

carried out his detepnination to bring back to the Reich 10,000,000 Germans who were outside at the beginning of the year, thereby justifying the national rearmament for which he has "worked fanatically" during the past three year,s. That accomplished, he "wants peace," but he so qualifies his expression of this desire as to make it mean nothing more nor less than being left alone to do as he pleases. This freedom he denies to others, presuming to dictate what Britain shall and shall not do, and to pass judgment on matters that lie solely within the scope of British politics. The "advice" he offers in this connection ifc couched in terms that he would be the first to resent if applied by others to. his Govern-, ment. The pith of his declaration,

"We would like otiher nations to occupy themselves, with their own problems and hot meddle in ours," amounts to an assertion that there are no international affairs except those that Germany may direct and control. All this is but an expansion of his announcement that Germany must be on guard, the blame for any breach of the peace being fastened beforehand upon others. Point ib given to his demand for licence by his claim to deal as he likes with all "German citizens in Germany," including those in Sude»tenland seeking to escape from Nazi oppression by confinement in concentration camps or other means. It is impossible to read Herr Hitler'd (proud references to German armaments, his description of Signor Mussolini as Germany's only true friend, and his choice of a peace doubly armed, without realising that he deliberately places himself outside all projects of general understanding and collaboration. This is disappointing and disturbing after the recent promise of better things. It behoves other Governments, not least those of the British Empire, to look to their defences while seeking to promote real pewe.