COLD DOUCHE FOR NAZIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23619, 1 April 1940, Page 8

COLD DOUCHE FOR NAZIS

Germany will be hard put to it to extract any comfort from the speech to the Supreme Council of Soviets by M. Molotoff, Russian Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. The Nazis have sedulously sought to create the impression that the Reich and the Soviet were working together in the closest and most practical amity. M. Molotoff gives no support to this German story. In fact ho scarcely refers to Germany at all. The one reported reference comes into his speech obliquely. He makes the false suggestion that the Allies are quarrelling with Russia because she is helping Germany in the trade sense. lie then proceeds to minimise this economic help by stating that Rumanian trade with Germany is '.'much more important." If in fact half of Rumania's exports are going to the Reich, as M. Molotoff says, their value would not amount to more than £14,000,000 a year even at the official and most favourable rate of exchange for Rumanian currency. By asserting that Russia's trade with Germany is much less than Rumania's, M. Molotoff has at a breath demolished the Nazis' claims as to (lie vast economic aid they are deriving from the Soviet. A friend would scarcely make so damaging a revelation. Certainly M. Molotoff does not conceal his hostility toward London and Paris, but neither.does he drop a singlo cordial word for Berlin. Instead he denies any intention of allowing Russia to be used as a cat's-paw and asserts, the complete independence of her foreign policy. Nazi stories of a Berlin-Moscow axis are thus disposed of, to say nothing of the Rome-Berlin-Moscow fantasy. The idea that Tokio and Moscow were coming to terms may also be dismissed, M. Molotoff stating that relations have not improved with Japan. Other points of interest are his emphasis 011 the non-aggression pacts in force with Turkey and Iran and his statement that Russia will not. go to war with Rumania to recover Bessarabia.