While nothing has emanated from the Quai d'Orsay, or Whitehall, which are both busily studying the offer of good offices from the King of the Belgians and the Queen of the Netherlands, Herr Hitler has bluntly rejected it, brusquely,—in a beer hall It is true that he made no direct reference to the offer of mediation, but he did say that he had given orders to Field Marshal Goering to prepare for a five-year-war, and if that, following upon receipt of the message from the rulers of the two most-threatened neutral countries, is not a complete rejection, it is difficult to know what is. It is a tiresome fact that the lucubrations of Herr Hitler have had to receive so much notice in the past, and must continue to do so in the future, for his speeches are very much of the nature of "the aforesaid artist playing upon the above-mentioned instrument." But it is the evil fate of the people of Europe, and of his own countrymen that the former have to read what the latter have to hear. Der Fuehrer commenced by going over the usual summary of German victories, necessary undoubtedly because of the scant success which has attended his policies since the rape of Poland. Then for the greater part of his speech he indulged in the usual attacks on Great Britain, vitriolic blasts of fury the outbursts of an angry, disappointed man, realizing that he is no longer able to have his way with the acquiescence of the Allies. but that he has been forced to lengths which he always promised his people he would save them from. Nor can he leave Mr. Winston Churchill alone. By the facile manner in which Herr Hitler twists history for his own purposes, he manages this time to lay the blame for the last war upon the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, of course, is, according to this strange manipulator of facts, responsible for the present struggle. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Churchill has all along been so clear in his understanding of Hitlerian policies, and has proved so accurate in his forecast of trends, that the Nazis have come to know that he understands them, and because of that they fear him. Mr. Churchill was not responsible for the last war. That blame lies just as much at the doors of those gentlemen whosthought they could tear up scraps of paper with immunity, as responsibility for the present struggle rests upon that man and his accomplices who fancied that they could follow a policy of dishonouring undertakings and escape scatheless.
Herr Hitler for once indulges in the odd pastime of giving his hearers a single glimpse of the truth. "What have we done against the British he asks, "What have we taken from them? Nothing. Have we threatened them? The truth is that Britain loathes Nazi Germany, and the Nazi social reforms that have put an end to unemployment and bettered the fate of the workmen." The German workmen best know whether their lot has been bettered, and they are perforce dumb on the subject. But when he says that Britain loathes Nazi Germany he is speaking nothing but the truth. It is certainly not possible to have any love for a system which tramples on the rights of smaller nations, which dismembered Czechoslovakia and laid Poland in a bath of blood, contrary to every assurance and promise which have now been proved by the event perjured from the very outset. He tells the truth with regard to the Poles when he admits that they are not cowards, but when he speaks of his victory over them as a victory of valour at the expense of their sacrifice he is again carefully coveri&g over the fact that the Poles made the gallantest possible resistance, ill-equipped as they were, against the overwhelming forces which Herr Hitler threw against them. He will not find the rest of the war he has brought upon Germany conducted with quite the same factors in his favour. There is the same old attempt to differentiate between Great Britain and France, and, perhaps the best answer to that is to be found in a leading article in the "Journal de Shanghai," published yesterday:—
It is with no lightness of heart that Great Britain and France have taken up arms. They have during past years, witnessed, without reacting against them, violations of treaties and provocation of all sorts. They allowed Aus-trio to be strangled and they sacrificed Czechoslovakia to their desire for peace. It they intervened on September 3 last to assist Poland, it was because it was absolutely impossible any longer to tolerate the crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich. France and Great Britain can no longer evade their sacred duty.
In that expression of French opinion on the present conflict there is nothing but an indication of the complete solidarity between the two nations, and it is in this remote part of the world but an echo of the fierce resolve of the two united peoples that these things which Herr Hitler is doing must be stopped.
The British and French replies to the Belgian-Netherlands overture have yet to be 44 sent.
It is expected that they will be somewhat more moderate in tone than the speech which Herr Hitler has delivered, but the fact that he has so swifty rejected the offer which has been made to him will relieve them of any responsibility for the continuance of the present struggle. The truth is, and Herr Hitler fully realizes it, that the time has long passed when it would have been possible to have made any adjustment of Germany's relations with the Allies, If that adjustment could have been made, it would have had to be precisely upon the same grounds as those upon which the Allies now insist. Those conditions for the future peace of Europe will have to be met before it will be possible to lay down the arms which have been taken up. The cause of freedom, the cause of common humanity, the cause of all that democracies hold dear demands that this shall be so. It is because of that fact that the Allies are determined that they will fight to the very last in order to prevent a German hegemony over Europe, to the very last to make sure that this evil thing, which was created in a Munich beer-hall, shall not be fastened around the necks of Europe for generations to come. Veiled threats of some new terrible weapon have no effect upon that determination. It may be that Herr Hitler has some surprise or other to put into operation against the Allies; it is equally probable that the Allies have things up their sleeves with which to give Herr Hitler cause for startled meditation. Be that as it may, the world will await with some interest' the pronouncements of the British and French leaders upon the Belgian-Netherlands offer. That they will be sympathetic goes without saying, but it is also to be taken for granted that there will be no weakening of the present stand, and that unless Herr Hitler yields to the demands which are made upon him, the war must go on until its fortunes reduce him to a more amenable frame of mind.
That may take the five years of which Herr Hitler speaks, but if it does he may rest assured the Allies will still be standing erect in the ring.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.