COLONIAL CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED Signs of Careful Plan
From Our German Correspondent
Many people are beginning to think that the anti-Bolshevist speeches at the Nuremberg Congress were meant to conceal its main purpose. Of more importance was the Four-Year Plan which was announced in the following words: " Within four years Germany must be absolutely independent of foreign countries for all those substances which can in any way be supplied by German ability, by our ow n chemistry, machine industry and mining. The construction of a big German raw material industry will also be able to occupy, in an economically useful way, the human masses which will be set free at the end of our rearmament scheme."
This, however, is nothing new. Efforts in this direction have been made for many years. We need only recall Hitler's pro
clanisa.A. •a last .sttar' .N urern berg Congress, when he said:
"As far as our eXport cannot supply the means which we need for the import of necessary raw materials and foodstuffs,
we have decided to make Germany hidependent of imports by the production of our own working materials. These are not bad substitutes, but equally good stuffs of the same or of a new type."
There are indeed a certain number of foreign raw materials which can be replaced by synthetic products of German industry. Artificial rubber called Buna is already largely used in the German army, but it costs eight or ten times as much as imported rubber.
The problem of cotton is much the same.
If the cost is immaterial Germany can continue her efforts and produce a certain number of necessary raw materials. There are, however, many others which cannot be produced, e.g., certain metals, wood and so on.
The Return of the Colonies
None of the Nuremberg speeches has really dealt with the affirmation that Germany's currency difficulties come mainly from the extraordinary amounts of raw materials imported for unproductive, i.e., rearmament purposes. One has the impression that the new Four-Year Plan has more military than economic reasons. The most significant thing is that, for the-first time, Hitler himself has announced Germany's colonial claims
It is made clear that Germany wants hack all her former colonies, not as 17)(11Idates or under any other conditions;. but unconditionally. It is obvious that the colonies would be of no use at all to Germany, unless they can he included in the German economic and currency system.
In that case their frontiers would have to be hermetically closed. A regime of the open door, as it is now in force in most African colonies, would be impossible, and non-German settlers would be ruined.
Togoland and Cameroons First
In a confidential booklet which has recently been circulated in leading circles of the Nazi party, it is said that Germany wants, first of all, to get back Togoland and Cameroons. The Hitlerite leaders seem to believe that France would have little objection and that Great Britain can be made to bring pressure to hear upon France, as the British are known to be very generous, when others have to pay the bill.
As to Tanganyika and South West Africa, some resistance is expected from Great Britain as well as from the South African Union, hut the Nazis are sure that with patience and clever diplomatic and propaganda methods such reluctance can be overcome.