The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1933. WHERE THE NAZIS RULE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19569, 16 August 1933, Page 6

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1933. WHERE THE NAZIS RULE.

Some months ago The Baity Telegraph suggested that the Nazis plainly mean to rule alone. “They reject all rein and bridle,” said the London daily. “They are determined to clear the ground of all obstructions. It is all very astonishing and shattering to those who believe in the political value of compromise.” It is plain that Herr Hitler and his co-partners in charge of the Nazi steam roller, have made up their minds that there shall be no party in Germany except the National Socialist. Once the Hitlerites had come to this decision they promptly suppressed the Social Democratic Party, the second largest in Germany. This was followed by an intensive drive against the Catholic Bavarian Party, which was dominant in Bavaria, until the attainment of supreme power by “handsome Adolf,” as Herr Hitler is called in Germany. The German Government’s dissolution order was levelled not only at the Social Democratic Party as such, but the edict actually annulled the party’s representation in the Reichstag, which comprised 121 members, while no Socialist Democrats are permitted to sit in the State Diets. By a mere stroke of the pen, Herr Hitler actually cancelled the popular mandates given at the polls to all elected representatives of the Social Democratic Party. More than that, Herr Hitler decreed the removal of all Socialists from public offices and the confiscation of the party’s funds and properties. Not satisfied to dethrone his opponents in the various political spheres, Herr Hitler turned his attention to the personal liberties of all who were suspected of hostility, or even passive opposition, to the Nazi regime. For months, wholesale arrests of members of the Socialist and Catholic Bavarian parties have been the order of the day; indeed, in his final drive to make Germany a one party State, Herr Hitler, in his capacity of Chancellor of the Reich, armed his Government with new and drastic powers. Eight new laws were adopted at a midnight session of the German Cabinet. One new law, the Constitution so that a member of the Reichstag may be prosecuted without the consent of the Reichstag. A few hours later, the Socialist leader and former president of the Reichstag was taken into custody. Obviously, the Hitlerites feared Paul Loebe, who before his defeat as head of the Republican Reichstag was known as the “Nazi-Red tamer.” To-day the Hitler Party boasts that if a new election were ordered, 75 per cent, of the people would endorse the existing system and applaud Herr Hitler’s ban on the Socialists on the ground of treason. Doubtless this boast has some foundation in fact, because under the terrorist conditions of the Nazi regime, opponents of Herr Hitler would go to the polls in very peril of their lives. The French newspapers point out that the fact that the Chancellor is able to suppress with a stroke of the pen a great Party like the Social Democrats, which despite its Marxist doctrines, always acted within the framework of the constitution, shows what a deep politico-social upheaval has occurred across the Rhine from France. Well informed commentators suggest that it is now clear that Herr Hitler does hot desire the return of the monarch in Germany, any more than Napoleon desired the Bourbons. The supremacy of Herr Hitler is desired. It is nevertheless interesting to point out that while Hitlerism lias declared war on Marxism, paradoxically the Nazi leader has been forced by the supporting masses towards Socialism and even Communistic politio-social programmes. Outside Germany everyone of the manifestations of political nonconformity lias come to be regarded as intolerable; indeed, the whole of the German life, down to the most minute point, is being standardised, according to a single invariable pattern. The Manchester Guardian, however, which has been banned in Germany, because of its reports on Nazi conduct after Herr Hitler’s accession to power, asserts that “the Nazis are wrong in attributing hostile British opinion to the Jewish question. There are many reasons, the journal argues, prominent among them being the brutality with which the Hitlerites are squeezing the life out of the representatives of every Shade of opinion they dislike. Herr Hitler’s recent references to the Nazi campaign against the Jews were obviously designed to create a diversion in the hope of turning the critical eyes of the world from the real issue confronting Germany to-day in the gradual destruction of the hard won liberties of the people now held in chains under the heel of the arrogant Nazis.

HELPING RURAL INTERESTS It is generally anticipated that the publication of the national accounts will revive the controversy that from time to time has raged round the exchange question. The statement issued by the Minister of Finance, dealing with the accounts for the first quarter of the current financial year, disclosed fairly substantial pur-

chases by the State, of London exchange. With the utmost frankness the Minister discussed this phase of the public accounts, and it may be taken for granted that the various sectional interests which have been most vocal in the Dominion, since the exchange question became such a topic of warm controversy, will make themselves heard. Already suggestions have been made that the Government intends to seize the first favourable opportunity to substantially reduce the rate of exchange between New Zealand and London. But so far no indication has been given by those in authority. The Acting-Prime Minister did say, however, in a short ' explanatory statement issued with the quarter’s accounts that “the amount of London credits that will have to be purchased during the balance of the year is bound up with the trade position, and is as uncertain as any estimate of trading results for the year.” Mr Coates went on to explain, however, that “what is certain, however, is that pending some appreciable recovery of export prices, the general interests of the whole Dominion require the measure of economic adjustment between prices and costs in basic industries now being effected through the exchange rate, for anything approaching a general collapse of our primary industries must mean ruin for the whole Dominion.” It is not easy to say just what Mr Coates means by this observation, because no one knows “the measure of economic adjustment between prices and costs in the basic industries now affected through the exchange rate” Mr Coates lias in mind. The spokesmen for the farming community, or at least, those who are helping to carry the burden of rural finance, make no secret of their attitude to the exchange rate. In reply to the critics who view the exchange question through the eyes of importers, a leading Christchurch authority on rural finance invites the opponents of high exchange to ask the farmer what the exchange rate has meant to him on his returns from lambs and wool and butter. “Can the opponents of the high exchange rate,” asks one leading business man in Christchurch, “knowing the grave facts of the present wide difference between the farmer’s costs and his prices, deliberately seek to deprive him of the benefit of the exchange ?

“I am both an importer and an exporter, and the import trade I handle is not small; but I can say without hesitation that the injury to our import trade through the exchange has been slight compared with the advantage to our mueh more important export trade. The 15 per cent, extra exchange was instituted in January 1933, but import prices as a whole have not risen since that time by more than 10 per cent. This defender of the high exchange added that those interested in the rural community hoped—it is not certain until the country begins to sell wool and lambs in December next —that prices of exports will rise, but it is not denied, this authority suggests, that the farmer is more than ever in desperate need of a rise, and it would be injurious to him and to the whole community to reduce the exchange before he has even had time to experience the increase. Precisely the same point is raised by the ActingPrime Minister, who insists that the “economic adjustment” provided by the high exchange rate has saved the primary industries from that collapse which Mr Coates said would bring untold ruin in its train. Doubtless it can be shown that any measure of “artificial respiration” administered to the primary industry is unnatural, just as economic palliatives are unsound. But the rural interests, more particularly in view of the growing demands for restriction of importation into Britain, notwithstanding the. outbursts of the critics, still stands iu sore need of all the assistance economic adjustment can furnish.