NO ILLUSIONS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4231, 15 January 1940, Page 8

NO ILLUSIONS

“THIS SHALLOW MEDIOCRITY” “Thei-e are no illusions at all about Ribbentrop,” says “The Times.” “Englishmen, wh.o had met him in earlier days as a travelling wine Imprchant were frankly (surprised when he was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James’s. He

seemed altogether too light a weight for a mission which was clearly considered in Germany, no less than in England, to be one of the first importance. He was never- an Ambassador in the sense in which so many of his great predecessors (ard for that matter his successor) regarded their propel- work. Nevertheless, he was received in this country, not merely with the (reticence and courtesy due to his post, but with an abundance of private friendliness. He left us, as far as is known, without the slightest grievance on that scone. Yet he also Heft us, as many Englishmen whd knew him felt at the time, without any real understanding of the people among whom he had been living | and wfilth all the rancour which coni-

es of a sense of personal failure. The surprise which had greeted his appointment to London was accentuated when he returned to Berlin to stand at the Fuehrer's side as Foreign Minister. Even the air cf mystery wihch still surrounded Hiller was shaken by the knowledge that the ruler of Germany was dependent in such momentous times on the advice of this shallow mediocrity.”