“MAD DOG” ACT”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 85, 12 April 1940, Page 3

“MAD DOG” ACT”

GERMANY’S INVASION OF NORWAY COMMENT BY BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY i l British Official VVirelesi. ) RUGBY, April 10. ; fhe Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, was the speaker at a luncheon to-day. In a series which has been addressed by various Ministers on the country's war effort, he dealt with the deeper causes of the conflict and the wider aims of the Allies. He began, however, with reference to recent developments. The situation, he said, was obscure, but it was clear that the whole of Denmark had been occupied by German troops. Norway had been attacked and part of the territory occupied. Norway had been assured by the Allies of full aid and that they would light the war to its end in association with her. Regarding the report that Norway was prepared to negotiate with the German Government, he I said L “I do not know whether the reoii is well founded, but if it were founded I have no doubt whatihat th Allied Governments oui * only regard that action as unde; duress and that, it would ,ii i > .ay whatever affect our deter,.i:n . ion to resist for a powerless N« oth the effect for Norway of ithis i> itai exhibition of violence and tor otuselves tne extension of German strategic power in the North Sea and the Atlantic which would be impossible for this country to accept.” After reassuring the audience that the powerful British naval forces in operation in waters adjacent to Norway were not idle, though he could not yet reveal anything, Lord Halifax went on to try to discover the motive of opening up the war in Scandinavia. He thought it might well he the result of some internal weakness in Germany of which in Britain they were not perhaps wholly aware. Certainly it was not likely to be of unmixed advantage to Germany. Lord Halifax said these events were of a kind which were liable to happen if the neutral States were not prepared to ask in time for help they so often asked for when it was all too late to give it effectively and if they did not realise in time that in a world where German assurances proved worthless, it was to their ultimate and essential interest to stand together. Recalling that the non-aggression pact with Denmark, valid for ten years, was signed only 10 months ago and that Norway had gone very far to accommodate Germany, he emphasised it was now clear that neither non-aggression pacts nor the absence of provocation were of the least avail against Germany if the German policy demanded otherwise Assertion Denied Lord Halifax strongly denied the German assertion that the Allies intended to occupy Norway. He insisted, too, that the German preparations were so elaborate as to prove that the operation had been planned in advance of the Allied minelaying, which the Nazis claimed provoked it, and added that even viewed as having been provoked by Allied measures in Norwegian waters, world opinion would recognise as unreasonable reprisal action of which the minimum purport was the destruction of the independence of two more countries. The truth was that in face of Ihis kind of action ot Germany, no country which was not in a position to defend itself was safe. If anything han been required to stiffen the British and French resolution the*; Germany's new mad-dog act would have supplied it by making plain once more that on thfe issue of the war hung the fate, not only of States actually at war, but of ail States who loved liberty and wished to preserve their independence. These events must also, he believed, have extinguished the last hopes of those few who had not before entirely despaired of the Nazi Government proving willing to co-operate to lind a basis for a reasonable peace. “There is no one as far as I know in this country or France who wants the war to continue for an unnecessary day, but if we are to judge by plain facts we must conclude that even before this latest outrage people were deceiving themselves who thought that the present German Government would ever be disposed to make the kind of peace that could be justified before the conscience of the world.” Hideous Philosophy While Nazism reigns it is plain we are lighting a new and very hideous philos >phy that repudiates every principle that underlies civilisation as we know it and which has been imposed on a great people under the cloak of national renaissance by a gang of men devoid Gt scruples and imbued with a profound lust of power. They have been engaged in turning Germany's peoples into machines and in eliminating all the humane qualities fostered by the family and by the Christian Church and that seems to me to be precisely the mentality of the great destroyers of history that emerged with areas of Europe impervious to the civilising influence of Rome. On the other hand the Allies stood for a positive creative force and for the defence of th? values without which there was no hope of human progress. All the energies and efforts of Britain and France were being increasingly directed without stint to one end —victory, and, in his judgment, the mighty machine thus being created must, in the end, prove irresistible. Passing references occurred in the speech to consultations at the Foreign Oflice on the Balkan situation and to Russia. Relations with Russia must be considered, the Foreign Secretary thought, not solely against the background of the Soviet’s wanton attacks on Poland and Finland, but rather in the light of what must remain the Allies’ principal objective, namely, the defeat of Germany. It followed that the future of those relations must depend, and ought to more than anything else, upon the degree of effective help that Russia might, for whatever reason. ■ : «h to give to Germany. Regarding south-eastern Europe,] he said that he need not emphasise