DISTRUST IN GERMANY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18067, 19 April 1933, Page 10

DISTRUST IN GERMANY

ANXIETY OVER HITLER • j , * * FRANCE WAS JUSTIFIED LONDON, March 11. Hitler’s electoral triumphs and the methods whereby it was accomplished have been the last straws in breaking British sympathy for present day Germany. The change that has been creeping over Anglo-German relations since the downfall of the Chancellor, Herr Bruening, is complete. British opinion now admits that France was fully justified in all her suspicions of German militarism and all her clamor for security. Great Britain’s warm friendliness for republican Germany has given way to deep distrust and, at the same time the Anglo-French entente stands stronger than ever with the British Government apd people. i To-dav Germany has hardly "a single friejld ut, the British press. Labor and liberal newspapers have switched suddenly from being Germany’s stoutest defenders to her sharpest critics. It matters not whether newspapers are high Tory or Laborite in politics—they all regard Nazi dictatorship as ugly and do hot attempt to hide their dislike of the present situation or their nervousness over the future. ENTHUSIASM FOR DISARMAMENT ! COOLS A by-product of Hitler’s emergence to power is that the British enthusiasm for disarmaments has cooled and agitation for revising the Treaty of Versailles has virtually disappeared. The comment of

the Manchester Guardian is especially significant because ever since tho war the Guardian has been tho foremost champion of Germany against France and loudest in its denunciations of the Versailles system. To-day deploring the disaster of German democracy, tho Guardian sarys:— “Externally until last year the pacific and moderate elements in Germany were defeated by what seemed tho intransigeant foreign policy of France. It is one of the times’ bitter comedies that now, while Franco genuinely seeks a reuricutaion of policy, Germany should come into the hands of men whose every past declaration on foreign affairs has been a threat to peace.” The Daily Telegraph puts its doubts in the form of questions:— “Can a party that has been fed for years upon little but hysterical hatred and councils of violence settle down into the support of a government that does not destroy or persecute?” “There is another, the answer to which seems all too easy. “Can the cause of tranquility in Europe and tho hope of disarmament lie favored-by the triumph in Germany of violently aggressive nationalism?” LONDON TIMES HAS MISGIVINGS The London Times lias similar misgivings, although it thinks Herr Hitler must continue to depend to some extent upon the Centrists and Bavaria if ho intends to alter the constitution by constitutional means. “;So far Hitler lias shown himself a consummate demagogue. As tho echoes of his electoral campaign die down tho German people will ask whether a spellbinder can govern. And other nations will watch to see whether he can maintnin the position of Germany as a “good neighbor” in Europe that Stressemann