The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1935. SLUMP IN MILITARY GLORY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20567, 19 March 1935, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1935. SLUMP IN MILITARY GLORY.

TN ASSESSING the significance of the repeated parades of armed might in Germany one must consider the crude psychology of Hitler, who is the representative of the spirit of Germany to-day. Obviously, these gigantic gestures are a method of ministering to Hitler’s and the nation’s ego. Germany is a European swaggerer, but this fact does not, of course, entirely take the threat out of her aggressive manner. The old militaristic ideas are being grafted on to the new Germany which did, indeed, rise from the seeds sown on the battlefields. The question is whether her youth is entirely gullible under the Hitler regime. “ The same old minds which arranged the last war are, I fear, busy arranging the next,” says Sir Philip Gibbs. But the world is different this time. The profession of arms in civilised countries has slumped in the romantic imaginings of the people, and even in Fascist countries it has to be bolstered up by huge military spectacles. One of the unfortunate accompaniments of the Westernising of China is the reversal of the importance of the place of the soldier. General Gordon—“ Chinese ” Gordon—observed that a red button, or military mandarin bowed low before a blue button, or civil mandarin, but recent stories coming out of China clearly show that the war lords arose in defiance of the popular contempt of the military. But the general decline of the glamour of arms need not be accompanied by a fading glory round the flag. It can still be the symbol of greatness in the fields of progress and sanity. WHO OWNS THE POLES? ' I "'HE Norwegian claim to land which Sir Douglas Mawson took possession of for Great Britain revives a long-standing controversy between Norway and Britain on territorial rights in the Antarctic. In 1927 some acerbity marked negotiations between these two countries regarding the ownership of Bouvet Island, and Norwegian whalers, operating in the Ross Sea, have shown reluctance to pay the royalty demanded by the New Zealand Government on every barrel of oil won. LieutenantCommander Geoffrey Rawson seems to think that Britain has claimed more of the Antarctic continent than she was justified in claiming. When the Byrd Expedition settled down in the middle of the Ross Dependency he drew attention to the large slices which Britain had carved out of the continent. The Falkland Islands Dependency was cut out twenty-one years ago, but the slice as then notified in the Dominions Office List included portions of the South American mainland belonging to Chile and the Argentine, probably the blunder of a clerk in the British Colonial Office who did not have a very good geographical instinct. This was rectified later, but the Letters Patent still retained “ to the south of the 50th parallel of south latitude,” thus including the Pole itself. The Ross Dependency was proclaimed in 1923. It also extends to the Pole, including, says Rawson, all the land discovered by the Norwegian, Amundsen. At the Imperial Conference of 1926, Britain asserted her claims to any outlying parts of Coats Land, Enderby Land, Kemp Land, Queen Mary Land, Mawson’s Wilkes Land to the west of Adelie Land, King George V. Land and Oates Land. These, with the discoveries of the recent expeditions, include practically all of the Antarctic coastline, and the large claims have caused considerable heartburnings in foreign capitals. The position is of particular interest to Norway, which is, however, in a difficult position, for in the case of claims like that of the Norwegian whale oil tanker Tliorshavn being actively contested, the New Zealand Government might close its ports to whalers, thus putting them in a quandary.