Evening star., 1935-03-27
Other States and Canada.
A Futile Mission.

A Futile Mission.
Sir John Simon's exploratory" mis-
sion to Berlin has come to futile
end. The British foreign secretary'S
efforts to persuade the German gov
eminent to join in concrete measures
to insure the peace of Europe found
Hitler unyielding. He will hear moth
ing of an Eastern Locarno." He will
not tie his hands with reference to
the future of Austria. He will not
pledge the Reich's readiness to re-
turnito the League of Nations. He de-
clines to enter into any commitments
as to the extent of German arma-
ments on land or sea or in the air.
Except for repeated assertions of Ger
man claims to equality in the field Of
arms and all other respects, Sir John
Simon's Explorations" in Berlin
netted no results whatever. BY no
stretch of the imagination can it be
argued that the cause of peace has
been advanced by the Anglo German
conversations, in which the Nazi
Fuehrer seems almost to have enacted
the role of a dictator laying down
terms.
In the midst of Hitler's truculent
declarations he did learn from his
visitor that the British people are
deeply concerned over present-hour
tendencies in Germany, and that un-
less there is marked change in the
Reich's international attitude some
system of general European security
must be evolved that Germany may
find to her serious disadvantage.
That is a polite way Of saying that
if the Nazis continue to menace their
neighbors by wholesale rearniament
approaching Germanys pre-war
power, they will inevitably forge into
being grouping of counter force
which will have the effect Of reduc-
ing the Reich to continuous inferi-
ority. Nazi purposes will thus be
completely nullified.
1t is only regarding Soviet Russia
that the Hitler-Simon talks appear
to have achieved any positive def
niteness. The Germans refuse to con-
slider any agreement which would
obligate them to come to the Com
munist states assistance in the event
of aggression against it, or to accept
for the Reich any Soviet aid in
German emergency. Thus the only
air accord in which Hitler evinces
interest would have to be confined to
Western Europe. At the same time, it
appears, the Fuehrer disavowS Ger
man intention Of ever attacking Rus
sia. But he is distinctly unwilling to
renounce all German ambitions in
the East, and circumstantially re-
ported Nazi demands for a navy capa-
BILE Of controlling" the Baltic tell
their own story of Na2i hopes, leav-
ing Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lith-
uania to fear the worst. Nor, plainly,
is Hitler willing to sign away Ger
many's aspiration some day to incor-
porate Austria within the Nazi Reich.
Sir John Simon can have been left
in no doubt on that score.
Next month Britain, France and
Italy will confer on the situation that
has been created by Germany's de-
fiiance of the military clauses OF the
treaty of Versailles. The Western
powers know now, if they were not
sufficiently aware of it before. that
they face not only the accomplished
fact of German rearmament, but are
confronted by a Reich determined to
bluff things through to the utter
most limit. The allied governments
are not thinking in terms of war
to bring Hitler to terms. Their re-
spective peoples are even less inclined
to seek an amelioration of the Euro
pean problem through another resort
to force. As things stand at present,
there seems no prospect Of anything
but an unrestricted and ruinously
costly competition in armaments 1t
Is fiimsy enough foundation for
peace. but until there Is q change of
heart in Berlin, Europe apparently
has no course open to it except to
erect impregnsble defensive barriers
against the menace which the Nazis
decline to remove.