THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, November 30, 1937. "CHATTERBOXES"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23362, 30 November 1937, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, November 30, 1937. "CHATTERBOXES"

There can be no doubt as to the importance which the leaders of the Fascist countries attach to the loud voice. That is constantly being illustrated. It is a way of speaking which democratic Governments do not affect. Herr Hitler and his colleagues, even as Signor Mussolini, seem to labour under a constant sense of the necessity of being impressive in their speech. They use the loud pedal at every opportunity. It may impress their countrymen, but not infrequently the effect is merely swash-buckler-ish. It is nothing for Herr Hitler to stand up and proclaim solemnly: "We know that under our flag—the symbol of victory—Germany will be victorious for all time." Signor Mussolini has set a great example in this sort of jingoistic phrase-making with his passion for the emission of reverberating pronouncements for the benefit of the world at large. But apart from his Ministry of Propaganda Herr Hitler has lieutenants who are well trained in the use of the heavy artillery of speech. General Goering, who sits at his right hand, is certainly one of them. Respecting Germany's claims for the restoration of her former colonies he appears to proceed on the principle that if a declaration is made frequently enough and loudly enough it will come true. There is such a thing as whistling to keep the courage up, and there is such a notion as that aggressive speech is sometimes the cover for an inferiority complex. The world learned not long since that all good Nazis agreed that guns were better than butter. General Goering conceivably consumed less butter, but there is no occasion to suggest that out- of the deprivation came the impulse for his latest rhetorical achievement, a climax to a reiteration on familiar lines of reasons why other nations should think twice of withholding from Germany anything upon which she has set her heart. Germany, General Goering shouts, has her friends. "The steel axis binding us with Rome and Tokio is a better guarantee of world peace than the League chatterboxes who meet at Geneva." There is an old saying about birds of a feather. But General Goering is really to be congratulated upon the neatness and lucidity with which he has expressed what is in the Nazi mind. It is a great concept, that of Peace flying from the chatterboxes at Geneva to the sheltering steel-linked arms of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Such rivalries as it suggests in the cause of peace should be most reassuring to an apprehensive world. To great self - respecting, self - defending, peace-loving nations like Germany, Italy, and Japan membership of the League had become intolerable. They simply could not continue to lay their aspirations at Geneva for daws to peck at. The nations of the League may go on chattering: where fifty of them seek to come to agreement concerning grave issues inevitably decisions are slowly reached. That has been a help to aggressor nations. With all international conferences it is more or less the same. But where a few master-minds, it may be in Germany, or in Italy, or in Japan, have the making of decisions, how agreeably simplified is the process! Dictatorships are nobly impatientchatter is an irritant to them, especially when it happens to arise in Geneva concerning themselves. Their disregard for the conclusions arrived at by conferences of the Powers, whether at Geneva or elsewhere, confronted with cases of the flouting of national obligations and treaty undertakings, they seek to justify by pouring contempt upon these conclaves. But for chatter outside the ring, so to speak, they more than hold their own. Their volubility is amazing. And perhaps General Goering has given the world a phrase.