Evening star., 1938-10-28
Hitler as Oliver Twist.

Austria from the Austrians; Sudeten-
land from Czechoslovakia; Togoland and
the Cameroons from France; now,
Southwest Africa and Tanganyika from
Britain. That is Adolf Hitler's gimme
list" to date, with no assurance what
ever that when it is gratified the Naz
Oliver TWIST will not ask for more"
His latest demands, for recession to
Germany of inundated colonial territory
In Africa now under British Empire SOW
ereignty, occupied yesterdays emergency
session Of the Chamberlain government.
Not in modern peace times has any
Downing Street cabinet had simul-
taneously to face such variety of trou-
bles as clamor for solution in London to-
day. The little war" in Palestine, re-
sultant from Arab-Jewish strife; the
grave situation at Hong Kong precipi-
sated by the sensational plunge of the
Japanese across South China; how to
cut the Gordian knot that is Spain, with
view to tardy implementation of the
Anglo-1talian pact; and, perhaps more
portentious than everything else, how
to rehabilitate British prestige after
Munich-these are the perplexing tasks
that confront Neville Chamberlain.
According to David Lloyd George
who on Wednesday criticized the govern
ment for the first time since the Munich
agreement, the one-time mistress of the
seas has lost honor, but not gained
tranquility" The little Welshman"
asserts that 'the sort of thrill of relief.
which passed through the country when
It realized it was temporarily at least to
be spared the horror and squalor of war
Is now beginning to be suffused with a
sense OF shame that We purchased peace
ut the price of conscience and honor"
That may be the theory now rising
IN Britain, but as Mr. Chamberlain
might say with Grover Cleveland, ut
Is . condition which confronts us-not
theory" The condition is posed pri-
marily by Germany's demands for Colo
nial restoration. That the London gov
eminent is perturbed over this pros
pect, to say nothing Of other problems
now dividing governmental and parlia-
mentary Britain, and, of course, public
oplnlon' as we'll, is clearly indicated by
the Prime Minister'S audience with King
George for the purpose of obtaining
royal approval of a cabinet shake-up.
The Edens, the Churchills, the Duff
Coopers and the Lloyd Georges do not
personlfy a preponderant section of
either the nation or of Parliament, but
It is everybody's secret that there is
q growing body of disapproval of the
Anglo-French bargain with the dicta-
sorships, and accumulating belief that
even Mr.. Chamberlain's peace in our
time" may turn out to be lamentably
ephemeral. Lloyd George goes the
length of foreseeing as Munich's AFTER
math. "a war without friends" for
Britain.
The arrival in Europe of Oswald Prov,
defense minister of the Union of South
Africa, presages Germany's colonial de-
nands. Former German Southwest"
the 322, 0-square- mile territory now ad-
ministered by the Capetown govern
ment as agent of the British Empire
mandate, is one of the most valuable
tracts Of territory wrested from the
Reich at Versailles, and one of those
the return Of which the Nazis most
eagerly covet. Former German East
Africa, now Tanganyika, also British
inundated, an area of 10000 square
miles, is another territory the Nazis long
to reclaim. Hitler is said to be asking
either for return of 1,031 ,839 square miles
Of former German domain on the Dark
Continent, or cession of other African
territory of equal extent.
Foreign Minister Won Ribbentrop's
arrival in Rome from Berlin by plane
today is timed, Intentionally or by rare
coincidence. with Germanys place in
the SUM- claims on Great Britain. Italy
has some solar ambitions in Africa,
too, which are being pressed at the cost
OF France, rather than Britain. It is
on Tunis, Algeria and Morocco that
the Tiber end of the Berlin-Rome axis
long has cast covetous eyes. Italo-Ger-
man control of the Mediterranean, in
stead of Anglo-French control, is the
Hitler-Mussolini goal
There are ominous indications that
another trial of strength and deter
mination between the relationships and
the democracies is imminent, with colo
nies in Africa and supremacy at Suez
as the stakes.