"We Have Guaranteed"

Early this week, at long last, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain got around to uttering the dread word Danzig. In a statement approved in advance by Poland and France, the Prime Minister tried to set at rest any lingering doubts that his Government would back up the Poles in resisting a German conquest of the Free City.

Taking cognizance of widely held suspicions that the Nazis intend to seize Danzig by promoting an internal coup in the city, Mr. Chamberlain said that such action would "at once raise grave issues affecting Polish national existence and independence." Added the Prime Minister: "We have guaranteed to give our assistance to Poland in case of a clear threat to her independence which she considers it vital to resist with her national forces and we are firmly resolved to carry out this undertaking."

Another power in Danzig, Mr. Chamberlain said, could "block Poland's access to the sea and so exert an economic and military stranglehold upon her." While there was no question of "any oppression of the German population in Danzig" and the present status of the City was "not basically unjust or illogical," he believed that in a "clearer atmosphere possible improvements could be discussed."

Many a European observer has guessed that the Nazis have two interlocking plans for war in Europe this summer: first a lightning-strike and then, if it fails, a deadlock in front of their defenses on the Western Front. If they win their Blitzkrieg they can take what they want; if they effect a deadlock, they can still bargain for concessions in return for Europe's peace.

Although the Prime Minister was not as clear and definitely not as blunt in his Danzig warning as Nazi officials usually are, he in effect served notice that Britain did not think the Germans could win their lightning-war. And the British Government fitted actions to its words:

> The Government introduced in the House of Commons a bill which will authorize credits of $300,000,000 to Britain's allies. Poland will receive the lion's share of the credits (one estimate had it that the Polish loan would amount to $200,000,000), but Rumania, Turkey, Greece and Egypt are also expected to share. Almost all the money, which will be lent through the Board of Trade, the British equivalent of the U. S. Department of Commerce will be spent in Britain to buy munitions, raw materials, war supplies. About $30,000,000 can be used to buy goods that Britain has imported and is willing to reexport. The bill is expected to pass Parliament this week. The British did not try to disguise the projected loans as anything but political. The Nazi official news agency called it a "coldblooded attempt to buy European cannon for the benefit of the British armament industry."

>This week-- the 14th of July--France will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille. This year the French Government is expected to outdo past performances in parading the power & splendor of French armed might on the Champs Elysees in Paris. Attending the celebrations will be Sultan Sidi Mohammed of French-protected Morocco, and Emperor Bao Dai of Annam, in Indo-China. Native troops from the French Empire will march alongside crack French regiments. Also in line will be a detachment from British Guards Regiments which have gone to France more than once in the past few centuries on less peaceful missions. Far more significant, zooming overhead will be five squadrons of Spitfire and Hurricane fighting planes, and Blenheim, Hampden and Wellington bombers, 52 planes in all, sent over from Britain for the occasion.

> The British Air Ministry announced that it has asked the French Government for the use of airports in southern France as "practice stations" for the Royal Air Force. The United Kingdom, it was said was too small for the speedy, long-range bombers Britain is building. From the bomber stations in the English midlands to the tip of Scotland and back, for instance, is a distance of only 1,000 miles. Practice or not, however, the British did not mind the conclusion that the planes would be a demonstration of Anglo-French military solidarity. Said the London Times: "There is no reason why the sight of the R. A. F. should be confined to this country. The dispatch, for instance, of a numerous and representative British Air Force to France in the immediate future, either for a courtesy visit or for actual participation in any displays or maneuvers which French authorities may be organizing, would not be superfluous. . . ." The was little doubt that the French would be glad to give the British the freedom of their airports.

Quiet. Meanwhile, in Germany Fueher Hitler went at week's end to his cool retreat in Bavaria. Many of his political lieutenants were taking a rest. The German generals were said to be scattered in spas around the country. The Foreign Office at Berlin was almost deserted and hard-working Nazi editorial writers, finding little news to discuss, ridiculed the "democracy-manufactured" crisis over Danzig, the Free City on the Baltic, and made fun of the "'war of nerves" which the French and British Governments had professed to believe was beginning. In fact, official Germany last week-end put on a complacent air of studied inactivity.

Not exactly quiet, however, were the week-end Nazi mass meetings held in Danzig. Tens of thousands of Danzigers poured out to hear Albert Forster the blue-eyed, 37-year-old Nazi leader of Danzig, predict that Adolf Hitler will soon bring the district with its 407,000 Germans back into the German fold. Leader Forster is all-powerful in Danzig; he has even sent the sometimes unruly and disobedient Danzig Senate President Arthur Greiser to Germany for "rest cures" when the President got in his blond curly hair. A Bavarian schooled early in Nazi tactics, Leader Forster walks, talks and acts like his Fuehrer. At the little village of Oliva he spoke under a banner reading "The Fuehrer orders; we follow." At the seaside town of Neufahrwasser, he advised his followers to "smash Polish influence wherever possible."

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