12 MAY 1939, Page 6

There is one debt to Germany which we ought in

fairness to acknowledge. Through German sources we learn much which we should otherwise have hardly even sus- pected about our own country. My own immediate debt is to the last—or perhaps the penultimate, for it is dated April—issue of News From Germany, a publication in English cyclostyled on blue foolscap paper, and produced and issued by one H. R. Hoffmann at Starnberg, Bavaria. The copy in question bears a rubber-stamp " Deutscher Auslander-Dienst, Berlin, KW. 7," which seems to clothe it with the reassuring vestments of authority. From it you may learn, inter alia, the opinions of Mrs. Colledge on Ger- many Who, do you perhaps ask, is Mrs. Colledge, and why do her opinions on Germany carry weight? The question is elementary. Mrs. Colledge is the mother of Miss Cecilia Colledge, who wins skating championships, and if to be the mother of a skating champion is not a qualification for such an affirmation as that " English people like Germany better than any other nation " I should be glad to know what is— though some allowance must be made for the possibility that Mrs. Colledge never said anything of the sort. Then there is that influential organ, The New Pioneer, of London, cited as expressing both dislike of Russia and the view that " our task is not to be special constables for the Balkans." The name of The New Pioneer had hitherto been unfamiliar to me, and the first reference-book I consulted gave no help. But the second supplied the need. The organ in question is a monthly, price 2d., and its distinctive features are given as " Camping, Handicrafts for Children." Its pronounce- ments on international affairs obviously merit re-export from Germany.