The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-10-23

I
 In his formal statement announc
 ing Germany's withdrawal from tn,
 League and from the Disarmament
 Conference Chancellor Hitler said
 After the Reich's Government
 in consequence of the German
 equality vouchsafed it on Decembel
 II, 1892, again declared itself ready
 to participate in the discussion!
 of the Disarmament Conference
 the official representatives of thC
 other States now have informed the
 Reichs Foreign Minister and oul
 delegates in public speeches anc
 direct declaration that this equality
 for the time being can no longer be conceded to the present-day
 Germany"
 This appears to be an accurate statement of the position. Sir John l Simon's account of the conclusions reached in the recent diplomatic conversations discloses that Bri- tain, France and the United States had agreed that Germany should wait a maximum of four years while her armaments and those of all others were internationally su pervised, before France and the other heavily armed States were obligated to begin reduction of their armaments The period of waiting might have been reduced by negotiation But the principle was clear that Germany must for some years accept inferiority of armaments and submit to interna- tional inspection of her military forces
 It is against this decision that Germany has rebelled. For while the powers might have gone to considerable lengths in the nego- tiations to make the principle ap- pear less unpalatable, they would undoubtedly have adhered to the essence of it.
 The reasons for this decision were indicated by Sir John Simon. "The present unsettled state of Europe" he said, lis fact, and statesmen in drawing up their plans have to face facts" Chief among these facts, it is evident, are the war like spirit of Nazi Germany and the aggressiveness of it's attitude toward the countries to the east of it. The Chancellor in his radio address avowed his desire for peace and spoke in conciliatory terms toward France He went so far as to renounce by implication the re- covery of Alsace- Lorraine. But in all that he said there was no word renouncing Nazi ambitions in Aus tria, in Poland, in the Baltic States. It is here obviously that the danger lies, and that this danger is real has been made evil dent by the attacks on Austria, by the spectacular demonstrations in East Prussia, by the Nazi plat form and by the Chancellor's own book.
 The British and the French have both become convinced that Hitler's Reich, if it had the power, would expand to the east. It has the will. Moreover, the re-education of German youth by the Nazis is clearly a moral re-armament. The Nazis have taught the German 1 youth to believe not merely that Germany was not alone guilty in 1914, a view shared by many inn partial historians, but that Ger many was never defeated in open battle. Germany, they are being taught to believe, was invincible until she was betrayed from the rear by pacifists, Socialists, and Jews. This myth of the invincible nation combined with the notion of the supremely superior nation has created a state of mind in Germany which the British have judged so dangerous as to warrant them in aligning themselves with the French. So they are demar& ing that Germany be kept relative ly disarmed long enough to see what it all signifies and to let Germany cool off bit.
 The technical dispute about armament is complicated. But the military ideas at the base of the dispute are reasonably clear. In both France and Germany military men agree that no nation can in time of peace prepare itself ade- quately for long war. The first phase of European war would, therefore, be struggle to carry the war into the enemy's territory, to prevent him from mobilizing his industry, to permit the invading nation to mobilize its industry. That is why heavy guns and tanks and bombing planes are held to be of such vital importance They are the weapons which would decide which side won the first phase of the war.
 Now this may or may not be a sound theory. It is clearly the tlnonr,r hald hath hn, tbn z. -. z.