VICHY’S PROBLEM

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21415, 8 May 1941, Page 7

VICHY’S PROBLEM

DEMAND BY GERMANY VIRTUAL ENSLAVEMENT LONDON PRESS COMMENT (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, May 6 While sympathising with Vichy’s problem of choosing between further concessions to Germany 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 spacious 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 toward the lasting enslavement of their country. The Times adds that, according to reports from the United States, Admiral Darlan has probably been sent home from Paris with peremptory demands for further submissions 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 Hitler 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. 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 a most powerful lever in his plot to force the war industries of France to work for him.