The German Elections The result of the GerMan elections, giving
the National Socialists 288 seats and their Nationalist allies 52 in a Reichstag of 647, was what might have been expected after a campaign in which the opposition parties had been virtually silenced by terrorism of varying degree. The surprise, -indeed, is that the two parties combined secured no more than the narrowest margin above the bare majority they needed to make their rule formally constitutional. The vote was heavy, and there is no reason to suppose that the secrecy of the ballot was tampered with. But an election held after one party has had the sole control of the wireless, after opposition papers have been suspended and opposition meetings prohibited or broken up through the length and breadth of the country, is an election in which freedom is a farce. A German correspondent in another column (writing from London) attempts to repel the charges laid against the Nazis by every responsible foreign journalist in Berlin. If he is right, the Berlin correspondents of papers like The Times, the Morning Post and the Daily Telegraph, no less than those of the News-Chronicle, the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Herald, have been consistently misrepresenting the situation for weeks past. That is not to be believed. The facts stand incontestable. The statement that over 120 persons have lost their lives in political conflict in Germany since the beginning of the year has not been denied, and it speaks for itself. Herr Hitler has raised himself to office by force, not by per- suasion, and it remains now to see how he will use the power he has grasped. * * * *
