POPE'S STERN CENSURE

Southland Times, Issue 24011, 29 December 1939, Page 5

POPE'S STERN CENSURE

Approval Of Press

In Britain

POTENT EFFECT ON WORLD (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 27. The Pope’s allocution to the College of Cardinals on Christmas Eve receives considerable prominence and appreciative comment in .the British Press. The Daily Telegraph says: “Many years have passed since there came from the Vatican so stem a censure on the rulers of States, such direct and precise declarations on international policy. “The effect on world opinion will be widespread and potent. Pope Pius XII, strove to the last to preserve the peace of Europe against Hitler’s fury, and when Poland lay ravaged he declared his faith in her resurrection and denounced the system of Hitlerism. Now his Christmas allocution opens with a condemnation of a ‘series of acts incompatible with international law and natural law and the most elementary feelings of humanity.’ “The atrocities on the bloodstained soil of Poland and Finland he boldly describes as acts which call for Divine vengeance. The first of the Pope’s five conditions for peace, justice and honour was that peace must assure the right to life and freedom of all nations, great and small, and for whatever had been destroyed there must be reparation.

“Thus,” says The Daily Telegraph, “the head of the Roman Catholic Church tells his people in the Reich and others all over Europe and the world that the war must go on until atonement is made for the Fuhrer’s crimes against humanity, by German recognition of the wrong done in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Finland and the establishment of their freedom.”

The Daily Telegraph concludes: “There is no substantial difference between the general definition announced by the Allies of the war aims which must be won and the Pope’s declaration of the condition in which he sees the only possible basis of peace.” The Manchester Guardian holds the same view that the Pope’s conditions for a lasting and just peace require freedom for the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Finns and Austrians, if it is their wish.

The Manchester Guardian compares the Pope’s allocution with Mr Roosevelt’s words on his appointment of a personal representative at the Vatican and brings out the important point of similarity which was expressed in each —that the will to peace must be supported by a general agreement on the method for bringing it about. The article concludes: —“If by their efforts the Pope and Mr Roosevelt can bring earlier that security which we are forced to pursue with arms the world will have been spared more misery than it now realizes.”

MORE UNEMPLOYMENT IN WORLD CLOSING OF PEACE-TIME INDUSTRIES

GENEVA; December 27. The International Labour Office survey states that there is a great increase in unemployment in belligerent and neutral countries following the outbreak of war. Only the United States and Canada show a decrease. The mobilization of millions of men and the boom in war industries have not absorbed the unemployed resulting from trade restrictions, the closing of peace-time industries and the appearance of women seeking jobs. British unemployment from midAugust to mid-November increased by 173,000 and French unemployment by 14,000 during September. The German figures are not available, but it is estimated that there is an increase despite the new labour battalions in the munitions factories.

The Belgian, Danish, Greek, Norwegian and Chilean unemployed figures have also increased. The survey " revealed a world-wide shortage of skilled labour.

DEATHS IN GERMAN TRAIN ACCIDENTS EFFICIENCY OF SYSTEM QUESTIONED

(Received December 28, 7.30 p.m.) ROTTERDAM, December 27. It is announced in Berlin that the deaths of persons injured in the Genthin railway disaster brings the total deaths to 196. The deaths in the Marksdorf accident on December 23 now total 29. Commenting on the increasing death roll in German railway crashes The New York Sun says; “The accident on Christmas Eve was the tenth serious railway accident since the war began. Those in authority among the Nazis must realize that these disasters signify that there is something radically wrong with the war-time efficiency of the Reich transport system. The newspaper added, according to a Daventry broadcast, that these disasters may presage the collapse of the German transport system.