1940-01-12 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 12, 1940

How Good is Nazi Army? How long a piece of string?

Speculation By A Military Correspondent

London, To-day.

NOW THAT SO MANY weaknesses have been un- masked in the Russian army, it is a natural ques- tion to ask how good is the German army, writes Reuter's military correspondent.

Is it possible, he asks, that it too may reveal the joints in its armour if a battle is fought in the West?

Can it be judged merely by the success in Poland, where conditions of modern warfare were in its favour?

There has never been any analogy between the Rus-

sian and German armies to be of military value.

The Germans excel at administrative and Staff work; their troops are mag- nificently equipped and whatever the internal state of the country the army is well fed.

The timbre of the Germans in now being measured by the Al. lled patrols.

The Allies are not making the mis- take of underrating the enemy, while the Germans are acting with caution than in Poland.

fensive lines lightly.

more

M.

DUTCH ECONOMIC DEFENCE

The Hague, To-day.

The Netherlands Government have introduced a Bill to esta - blish a fund for economic de- fence in order to finance special measures arising from war con- ditions, including the keeping down of the prices of thể neces- sarles of life. Reuter.

HERRIOT DEFINES PEACE AIMS OF FRANCE

(SPECIAL TO "CHINA MAIL")

They are obviously holding their de- The newly re-elected Speaker of Deputies, M. Edouard Herriot, speech yesterday why Britain forced into war.

SPRING OFFENSIVE

If the Spring offensive develops, the

troops engaged will be fresh physical-

ly and eager for the fray.

. Whether they will be as good as the Kaiser's troops in 1914 in matter of opinion.

#

The present German army is young and has little experience in fighting.

Paris, To-day.

the Chamber of emphasised in and France were

"Both countries are defending, as President Roosevelt said on January 3, freedom, rights of conscience, moral

'HAD FURY OF SCORNED WOMAN'

"She has satisfed me that her evi- dence was saturated with venom, and that at the back of her evidence was that fury of a woman scorned.”

Mr. Justice Lewis said this in the King's Bench Division concerning forty-three-year-old Miss Constance Eleanor Potter, of Shoot Up-hill, Lon- don, N.W, when he dismissed with costs her breach of promise action against Mr. Harry Cousins, aged fifty- seven, of Golders Green-road, N.W.

Miss Potter, who had been stated by her counsel to have been "thrown os one side like a piece of rubbish” afier an engagement of ten or fourteen years, claimed that, after a secret en- and gagement, intimacy took place, they were officially engaged in Septem- ber, 1925.

Mr. Cousins denied the secret enga- gement, and pleaded that the official engagement was rescinded by mutual consent.

"EXTREMELY SORDID STORY” Mr. Justice Lewis, giving judgment, described the story 25 "extremely sordid.”

When the action began Miss Potter's counsel asked that the statement of claim should be amended to fix the date of the promise, not as December, 1921, but as February, 1922. Coun- sel further told him (the Judge) that the particular in regard to intimacy were erroneous, and that no intimacy had taken place, between the parties until 1925.

A was matter for extremely strong comment that Miss Potter, who allege a promise of marriage and seduction, should make so terrible a mistake as to give the wrong date of the promise, `and, further, to allege that she was seduced three years before the date

rights and democracy, which is the best form of gov- | she now gaye. ernment yet created by man."

M. Herriot ealogised the Allied and said: "Franco-British armies, solidarity in wartime is an excellent augury for times of peace."

He also paid homage to Finland, resistance "represents the

On the other hand, the Allied arm- ies are filled with veterans and, thanks to Colonial and Imperial responsibili- | whose tles, many of the younger regulars triumph of mind over matter, and

·have been under fire............

human values over brutality."

PEACE AIMS

M. Herriot outlined France's war aims, which, he said, were

To ensure peace for all nations, To organise the enforcement of inter- national law, taking into account past lessons,

RICHER IN INITIATIVE Hundreds of young Allied officers have experienced the responsibility of command, which breeds individual ini- tiative, and it is safe to say that the Allies are infinitely richer in

To make sure that every country can quality than the Germans.

Initiative is a quality invaluable un-satisfy its needs by normal pacific

methods, der the most difficult conditions of war. -Reuter.

that

To enforce once again the rule of moral ideas, respect for which has foundered, and

To support the idea that there cannot exist a true civilisation without rès- pect for the pledged word.

"International law must be found- ed on moral law and kept: safe by a specific regime of security."-Havas.

GROWTH OF 'RED TAPE' TERRIFIES BISHOP

"I am really terrified at the growth of the spirit of bureaucracy," said the Bishop of Bristol, Dr. C. Salisbury Woodward.

Criticising what he called "the in- crease of red tape," he said:

"Bureaucracy means a little body

“STRIPPED TO WAIST** Referring to an incident after dance soon after they had met, he said that at the suggestion of Mr. Cousins than a man fourteen years older Miss Potter who was then twenty-five or twenty-six-she consented to strip herself to the waist, and spent a quar- ter of an hour with him in her draw- ing-room in that condition.

At that time, his lordship was sati- fled; there was no-promise of. marriage.

'Miss Potter is obviously not in a sound physical and nervous condition," his lordship continued. “This was her first appearance in a public court, and she had to go into the witness-box of people in Whitehall- quite out of | und admit she had been intimate with 'I make every allowance for that, touch with the Tom, Dick or Harry this man when she was not married. · in the street who have power to lay down regulations, control indus. and for. the fact that she has been ill. A large extent com- "Certainly in one sense she has been tries, and to

badly treated by him”. mandeer our lives."

BRITISH STRENGTH MISUSED

Britain is misusing her war re- sources "good and hearty" and spanners the indus- are being showered into

trial machine, said Sir Warren Fisher, Regional Commissioner for the North Western Region, at a dinner at Man- chester.

Sir Warren was stressing the need for "real economic planning.”.

That meant, he said, not twenty different Ministers or departments all acting independently, but a unified direction under a Minister selected for his qualifications and in the War Cabinet.

"What we really rely on apart from our morale is outlasting the other side," he said. "That is our economic strength.

“We start with an advantage. But it is not so great an advantage, and our resources are not so immeasurably superior to theirs that we can afford. to misuse them.”

It would need every ounce of our moral courage and drive and en cy to win.AH

CLUE TO MYSTERY OF

25 YEARS AGO

The mystery of the disappearance in New Zealand 25 years ago of Mr. Sydney King, a member of the Alpine Club of London, may be cleared up by the discovery of a body preserved in the ice of the Hochstetter Glacier, Westland, South Island, New Zealand.

In a Reuter report from Welling- ton it is stated that men walking on the lower portion of the glacier found a human trunk compressed to about in in thickness, with the flesh well preserved. There was also a quantity of clothing.

King, with two qui

an avalanche