THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, May 17, 1939. DANZIG UNDER MENACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23810, 17 May 1939, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, May 17, 1939. DANZIG UNDER MENACE

The menace to Danzig which is represented in the reported assembling of young Germans in the Free City and the provocative declarations in the German inspired press, is not a menace to this one small territory, nor to one nation alone. The Nazi high command must be extremely insensitive to international opinion, and insanely contemptuous of the studied warnings of the spokesmen for the two great European democracies, if it imagines that Danzig can be seized for the Reich by such methods as Czechoslovakia and Memel were secured. Colonel Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister, made it clear in his statement early in the present month that his country had no thought of surrendering Polish rights in Danzig merely on a show of strength by the Reich, and a later official statement from Warsaw puts the matter even more plainly. Any attempt, it is stated, to alter by force the status quo in the Free City will be met with immediate action by the Polish military forces, which are held in readiness for war. The determination of Great Britain and France to countenance no further acts of aggression through intimidation, such as have changed the face of Europe in recent months, has been explicitly expressed. The two Powers have become in a large sense the guarantors of Poland's

frontiers, and there is no reason to believe that the Free City is exeluded from the scope of their undertakings to the Polish nation. If, as Signor Mussolini's latest pronunciamento suggests, and as has been hinted in German messages, the Axis Powers do not consider that the democratic Powers would adventure into war to save Danzig from seizure, they appear to have little authority for their presumptions. In his most recent statement to the Chamber of Deputies M. Daladier reiterated the resolve of France to stand by her pledges. In an impressive address at the Albert Hall, Mr Chamberlain cited Danzig specifically when he declared that "no greater or more deadly mistake could be made abroad" than to be misled into a belief that Great Britain and France were not in earnest and determined to fulfil their undertakings. In view of these coldly emphatic declarations, it is virtually impossible to think that Herr Hitler can be in doubt as to the consequences, should he attempt a Nazi coup in Danzig. But while Poland and her guarantors are bound to resist German aggression aimed at Danzig, there has been no suggestion that the claims of the Reich to a greater measure of self-determination for the predominantly German population of the Free City have been flouted or ignored. Colonel Beck has expressed his willingness to seek "reasonable and conciliatory solution's" of Polish-German problems, and Mr Chamberlain, in announcing the guarantees to Poland, recognised that there were outstanding between these countries questions that could be adjusted by way of free negotiation. It is the methods of gangster-diplomacy which have been outlawed by the Powers, not the settlement of admitted problems between Germany and her neighbours by peaceful means. That Herr Hitler desires, or could desire, to repudiate any form of settlement in Danzig short of plunging Europe into war need not be believed. It is much more probable that the purpose of the present provocative campaign for the return of the Free City to the Reich is intended, however mistakenly, as a preliminary to the reopening of negotiations regarding the future of the Free City.