POWERFUL LEVER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21957, 8 May 1941, Page 5

POWERFUL LEVER

Hitler’s Demands On Vichy (Rec. 8.50 p.m.) RUGBY, May 6. While sympathising with Vichy’s problem of choosing between further concessions to the Nazis and the pathetic continuance of the spectacle of large numbers of able-bodied young Frenchmen in German prison camps, “The Times” insists that the people of France should remember that however specious the Nazi proposals they amount to no more than an offer to shorten the temporary captivity of their sons in order that they may help towards the lasting enslavement of their country. “The Times” continues that according to reports from the United States, Admiral Darlan has probably been sent home from Paris with peremptory demands for further submission to the Nazi will. Under threats that Vichy has little power to resist, unoccupied France is to be harnessed to Hitler’s war machine. By the terms of the armistice he cunningly limited the extent of his responsibility for the affairs of the starving and resentful people while providing himself with ample instruments for bending them at any time to serve his purposes. “The Times” concluded that while young Frenchmen remain imprisoned Hitler is precluded by the Geneva Convention of 1929 from employing them directly in any war industry, but he has discovered that he can use them indirectly as the most powerful lever in his plot to force the war industries of France to work for him.