The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1935. THE SAAR RESULT.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1935, Page 6

The Daily News

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1935. THE SAAR RESULT.

OFFICES: NEW PLYMOUTH. Currie Street. STRATFORD, Broadway. HAWERA. High Street.

By a majority of ten to one the residents of the Saar have indicated their, desire to return to German citizenship. The decision is so emphatically demonstrated as to leave little option for the League of Nations but to acquiesce in the wish expressed. Theoretically Sunday’s plebiscite was to be but a guide to the League in deciding the future status of the Territory. Allowing for the effect of the more high-handed of the propaganda from Berlin there can be no question but that the desire of the Saarlanders to return to the Fatherland is general. For the sake of the peace of Europe it ia satisfactory that the verdict leaves no doubt regarding that desire. The voting was conducted under international supervision, the conditions they must accept as part of present-day German citizenship should have been well known to all who exercised the "franchise, and to attempt to thwart their will would be to make a mockery of the selfdetermination of peoples as to the national status they prefer, which the League is pledged to uphold. There remains but the question of the minority who do not desire to return to German rule. The Socialist leader, Herr Braun, said a week ago that 50,000 people in the Saar would become refugees if the alternative was to accept the domination of Herr Hitler and his -Nazi colleagues. Since then promises of fair treatment of opponents have been made by the German authorities, though their record in this regard has scarcely created confidence in these later undertakings. At one time threats to treat all who opposed return of the Territory to Germany as traitors were made freely by the Nazi leaders, and if there is suspicion of these threats being carried out the League may request safeguards for the minority that desires to remain under its direct control. The need for statesmanship at Berlin has not ended with victory at the polls. The League has always treated the care of minorities as one of its most serious duties, Germany herself upholding this attitude in regard to the minorities of German people in the Polish “corridor.” The settlement of the return of the Saar to Germany, with or without safeguards for the minority, has been made easier by the financial arrangements agreed upon beforehand between France and Germany. They are the nations most concerned, and it is an augury for their better relations' in future that the financial conditions were settled before the plebiscite was held. The result of the poll shows that the British attitude when the treaty of Versailles was being drafted was correct. Her representatives held that the permanent ceding to France of the Saar Territory would but create a new Alsace-Lorraine difficulty in Western Europe. It was the loss of her provinces that kept hatred alive between France and Germany, and this despite the fact that in material affairs the German administration of Alsace-Lorraine was quite as successful as that of France. Materially the Saarlanders have benefited by the administration of the League of Nations. They have shown, however, that the call of the blood can over-rule all else, and their decision will be accepted willingly by those who honestly believe that selfdetermination is the right of all civilised peoples.