23 JUNE 1939, Page 14

I wonder whether my correspondent, when he wrote those happy

words, had considered the implications of the Tientsin challenge or had read the speech made in Danzig by the Fiihrer's representative on Saturday night. " We regard," said Dr. Goebbels, " the platitudes voiced in War- saw and London as so many attempts to cover up lack of strength and determination." In this is our difficulty. If we show resolution, we are accused of brutal encirclement; if we speak reason, we are jeered at for our weakness. Is it surprising that a cloud of fatalistic despair should be spread- ing across Europe, and that so many wise and temperate people should at last have come to the conclusion that the rulers of the Third Reich have closed their minds to any- thing but loot and violence?

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