1938-12-20 — Page 40

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THE HONGKONG TE LEGRAPH, TUesday, DecemBER 20, 1938.

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Non-Stop to Madness

FATHER TIME: "IF I WRITE THIS DOWN UNDER 1938 A.D. THEY WON'T BELIEVE IT."

-Strube in the London "Daily Express"

HOW DOES it all come about that Memel, this commonplace Baltic seaport, which, in spite of its 700 years of history, has dull modern

The whole fabric of Law and Order, upon which our Civilisa- tion is based, is rapidly dis-buildings and provincial integrating.

shops, should That criminal result of the monstrous policy of armaments have tion upon which the entire world has embarked is becoming

an

such

power

to the

inexorable certainty from deepen

which, soon, there can be no anxieties of a states-

man?

escape.

#

Every nation is wasting its substance in preparation for the It is a German town and it is calamity of another World War. on Lithuanian soil. It is The cost of armaments has Lutheran town, and it is in a reached astronomical propor-Roman

is Catholic State. Il tions. representing # drain German because it was founded upon the world's resources that by Germans and settled by Ger- is staggering in its immensity. mans. It is Lithuanian because

We, as individuals, appear the Lithuanians grabbed it. powerless to halt this insensate

The Teutonic Knights founded folly that can have but one end-it as an outpost of Christendom ing-War and the destruction of the heathen and Slavonic

civiliantion that has taken East. They spread the religion...

of Jesus with the sword.

2

centuries to mould.

The real tragedy of the calamity that has overtaken the, world is the helplessness of the masses. As if hypnotised, we can do nothing but stand im- potent, as nation' after nation is seized by the maniacal jungle phobia-the law that only the fit can survive and the weak are doomed-and join in the race for survival.

Perhaps missionary zeal was not the only incentive of these warriors. Memel stands at the eastern end of the Amber Coast. Under the waters of the Baltic, somewhere opposite the town of Konigsberg, is a sunken amber reef.

the

The climax, terrible to con-

When storms trouble template, is certain unless a waters amber, broken off this wave of sanity can miraculously reef, is washed on to the sands rid the world of its

Memel. insensate between Danzig and fears.

To the mad rush for arma-

The Story

of

it was a raid, and in force. Kovno, capital of Lithuania, re- ported that the Memel popula tion, crying, "Down with the German Free City." had, by spontaneous act, formed Supreme Council of Defence and in demanded incorporation Lithuania.

200

MEMEL

Names New Dortmund, MemeBury, Memel, Klai- pedu.

Owners-Knights of the Ten- tonic Order. Hanseatic Leagur, Swedes, Prussians, Lithuanians.

Present Status--Bone of cons tention between Adolf Hitler's Reich und Antanas Smetona's Republic of Lithuania.

Future-Only certainty which

Rem

can be predicted is that cance of am- of a hurrassment to distracted democracy.

Main Street, Memel.

by Alexander

Alan

gave reality to his government with their bayonets,

Whelan

The

n

French soldiers announced that they would re- sist the invaders to the last. Ambassadors met in Paris. The British cruiser Caledon was ordered to the Baltic.

A French colonel was despatched to com- mand the garrison. An Allied protest went to Lithuania.

Lithuanian

Meanwhile, the raiders come nearer. They have

shots with exchanged

the French. They demand the with- drawal of the French troops. Another Allied protest is sent to Lithuania.

Then, on January 16, all is over. The green-armleted raid-.. ers close in on the French garri- son. There is fighting round the prefecture. It is said that the French fight valiantly, though desperately out-number- ed. It is certain that they do not fight to the last. The news- papers report one Frenchman- killed and three wounded before a truce is called.

cr

The French High Commission- makes his last and most solemn protest. And that is all. Memel is in the hands of

On January 11 the sky-blue vided it is given a measure of

local autonomy.

had taken the Lithuanians. A month later Through long centuries this has 1923. A High Commissioner of Ruhr. Bonar Law gone on, so that amber not only the Allies, a Frenchman, ruled the equally fateful decision that the conference of Ambassadors ments and yet more armaments can be found on the shore, but in the Memel prefecture. A Britain would not march with proposes that the town should be handed over to Lithuania pro- there must be an ending, for no is also mined under dry land. garrison of 200 French soldiers them. nation can indefinitely bear the Of the quarter-million pounds terrifle financial and economic of amber found every year in strain upon its resources. That the world, 220,000 pounds come ending is-War.

from this region. The Teutonic Knights presented themselves with a monopoly of all the amber found. Penalty for poaching- death by hanging.

By the law of the jungle which the nations of the world have adopted, the weakest must be the first to drop from the race, That will not be the fate of Democracy, as exemplified by Great Britain and the United States, both of which are able

Germany

The_green-armlets filter back

columns of French infantry marched into Essen. About the same time, note two events of the highest significance. The prostrate. Americans decide to withdraw WON

A to Lithuania proper, their work Lithuania was in arrogant mood. their troops from Germany. She had been stung in her na "Herr Adolf Hitler." leader of done. They can feel confident the words of the tional pride by the seizure of the National Socialists, "the so- that, in Vilna, once her capital, by the called Fascisti-of Bavaria," ad- Lithuanian Prime Minister, a Poles. The Lithuanians de dresses a huge demonstration at solution will be found which

"corresponds with the wishes of Before the war Memel was a manded that Memel be handed Munich. The

the population," to bear much greater amputa- 'depressed German seaport.

over to them. True, its people vengeance on France.

At à conference at Lausanne, ·And so It proves. In due tions of wealth and resources was depressed because it was cut were German, but the inhabi- for security than they have yet off from its hinterland, the tants of the country districts Lord Curzon was patching up a course, the League of Nations round the town were Lithuanian: peace treaty with the resurgent throws the cloak of legality and been called upon to suffer. It Lithuanian farmlands and the:

it

crowd

swears

will be the fate of the Totali forests of Poland. The Russian Besides, it was Lithuania's only Turkey of Kemel Pasha. In the respectability over the land- United States, Mr. Baldwin was grabbing exploit of the tarians, whose life-blood has Empire, in which those terri- possible outlet to the aca. already been drained away by tories were incorporated, had

A conference of Ambassadors talking Debt Settlement with the. Lithuanians, Memel becomes an

nutonomous unit with the of Lithuania. Bri-

machines.

Aniericans,

In a by-election in Newcastle sovereignty na

reckless transfusions that have seaports of its own, Libau, had met: proposed that Memel sought to vitalise their war Vindau, and Riga. They got the be given the same status

The fear that clutches at the business which would naturally Danzig. Lithuania rejected their excellencies' suggestions. Memel must be Lithuanian!

have been Memel's.

Forgotten by the world was sleepy Memel until the Treaty of Versailles took it from Ger-

East the big issue was what the tain, France, and Italy are nowspapers called "our constant guarantors of her Constitution. heart of roan is this: will

problem," unemployment.

That the day will come when On the vast and stormy Totalitarianism, if its reckless-

horizon of this world of January the world is once more busy, its ness hurls it over the brink of

1923, where huge black clouds statesmen distracted, Ita. inter- the abyss, go over alone? Or will it, in obedience to the law many and set up an inter-Allied The month of January 1923 raced into the sky, one new cloud national ninchinery in hopeless of the jungle it has instituted, Administration. Memel's den was a time of crisis. It was one appeared-Memel. A small disorder-that there may once turn on its victors and, in one tiny was to remain in suspense of those crowded moments when cloud, so small that the news more be raiders on the roads last despairing effort, carry until the statesmen of the Allies, the long agony of post-war papers hardly noticed it, near Memel, with armlets, but them and Civilisation, too, into busy about their godlike task of Europe crystallises in conflict

armlets-swastikas On January 10, it was reported not green the depths below?

reshaping a world by drawing and decision. Statesmen wore that Lithuanian bands were ad- this time, the raiders of Herr The road nations are follow-new lines on maps in Paris, concerned with great issues. vancing on the town. They were Hitler!-this is a conception that ing is the road to madness, should have made up their minds Newspapers were electric. Des. In civilian clothes but they wore wha

far, far away from the Pray God that, before it is too what was to be done with it

tiny moved at a gallop.

green armleta. It appeared that thoughts of men in January late, they will find sanctuary in

This was the situation, from The French had taken the there were several thousands of 1928. Banity.

1919 to the month of January fateful decision to enter the them, perhaps as many an 8,000. Not so far in December, 1988

+

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