PRESSURE ON GERMANY

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21082, 8 April 1940, Page 7

PRESSURE ON GERMANY

TO BE TIGHTENED BY BRITAIN

MOST URGENT TASK OF THE MOMENT FATE OF NEUTRAL COUNTRIES IN THE BALANCE (Official Wireless) (Received April 8, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, April 7 ine steps incidental to the Allies’ determination, announced on Tuesday by the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain, to prosecute the economic war against Germany to the utmost power, are the chief subject of Sunday newspaper comment. The Sunday Times describes the tightening of the economic pressure upon Germany as the most urgent task of the moment and considers that “especially on the side of the weak neutrals which lie north-west and southeast of Hitler’s dominions it has become essential to adopt more drastic policies. The relation to Germany of neutrals, both in the north-west and south-east, is that of threatened men. Against the Scandinavians and Dutch she commits outrages with impunity. She sinks their ships and murders their seamen. These are acts of war from which war would follow were not the parties so unequally matched.” The Sunday Times regards the position of the northwestern neutrals as highly paradoxical, since “ They have an interest in an Allied victory almost greater than that of the Allies themselves. Not one of them would survive as a free country if Germany were to win the war, yet here they are hardening the rod for their own backs—Sweden and Norway supplying indispensable iron ore. If they will not voluntarily stand up for their own interests we must consider how to persuade them to do so. “ It will scarcely be possible for us, in solving these problems, to observe throughout the letter of international law against an enemy who rides roughshod over it, both in letter and spirit. There are limits to the extent to which rules of any kind can be observed one-sidedly. Certain it is, however, that we shall never be the first to break them.”