It is natural that there should be consider-critical of Japanese plans for expansion, Great Britain, preoccupied elsewhere, refrains from replying to a series of minor irritations. France lies helpless, while watching Japanese penetration into her valuable colony of Indo-China. Holland is apprehensive over the future of the Netherlands East Indies, another valuable prize which extremists of the Far Eastern empire would like to seize. Germany is displeased with the threat to possessions which fe she had hoped might fall into her lap eventually. Russia at the moment is quiescent, but suspicious. Forecasts of Prince Konoye's mani-and in itself is not sufficient to account for the wave of anxiety which seems to be sweeping the nations with stakes in the Orient. Certain citizens of the East Indies would like to see their. islands taken under the protection of Britain or the United, States, despite the fact that both countries have declared their intention of ig the status quo. There is talk in Tokyo that the United States and Australia may come to a defensive agreement similar to that now being negotiated between Canada and the United States. If such an agreement materializes, it can only be designed as a safe against aggression from one quarter. Such obvious distrust of- Tokyo's intentions may, of course, simply be an outcome of war hysteria following Hitler's successes on the European continent; but it is earnestly to be hoped that Prince Konoye's statement today will have a calming effect, 4 How It Is Done Nothing could be more revealing concerning the tricks of Goebbels' well trained propagandists than a small incident which happened yesterday. The enemy news agency disseminated a telegram yesterday morning, in which the capture of a British airman in Germany was reported. The message then went on to state that a British air craft made a forced landing, and the crew were unconscious and wounded when the Germans rushed up. A flight-lieutenant, coming out of his stupor, took a cigarette lighter from his pocket, and endeavoured to/set fire to a small booklet. It was taken away from him, and it proved to be a diary, which was alleged to have contained some interesting notes concerning the moral of the R.A.F. An alleged entry dated June 7 is said to have read:—
Learned today that R.A.F. officer has been sentenced by court-martial to six months in prison for remarking that all R.A.F. officers commander upwards ought to be shot. he is right.
There is more than that in the message, but this particular passage is interesting because a Reuter message received yesterday reported the case of Major Wintle, m.c., of the First Royal Dragoons who appeared before a court-martial on Monday, on a charge of assault. The report appears elsewhere, but attention is drawn to the following significant passage in it:—
The accused, it is further declared, also said certain Ministers of the Crown,—he named one or two—ought to be shot, and all officers of the Royal Air Force above the rank of group captain and most setier army should be shot.
Of course it may be possible that two separate individuals may be of the same idea and that the German propaganda machine is in this instance the victim of a coincidence, but the publication of its story so quickly after the issuance of the reports of the opening of Major Wintle's trial suggests not only the inspiration of what is so obviously a fabrication, but also demonstrates the rapidity with which the artists in fiction, attached to Goebbels' ministry of misinformation, get down to their work. Incidentally it may be mentioned that in the course of the British raid on Berlin, according to an enemy report, incendiary bombs destroyed a hut in one of the suburbs, a variation of the story of two cows and a pony in an open field. Is it any wonder that German communiques are described as worthless?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.