Statesman v. Thunderer

Although no one suspects Major the Hon. John Jacob Astor, proprietor of the London Times and brother-in-law of famed Nancy, of having taken "Nazi gold," his great journal has gradually become sufficiently pro-German to provoke international reactions. Not long ago that famed "Thunderer," the Times, editorialized:

"It was a crude blunder in the peace treaties to forbid the union of German Austria with the German Republic. ... It will be safer policy to expect and allow for the expansion of German interests along lines which it is patently destined to follow. ... If there is to be peace, there can be no exemption from contribution and concession--neither for Germans, nor for Czechs, nor for the British Empire either. . . . The gravitational pull of a nation of 70,000,000 [Germany] cannot be denied."

This pro-German propaganda, a great deal better than any Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry of Propaganda know how to turn out in Berlin, alarmed Central Europe where people believed the Times was speaking for the British Government--approving Adolf Hitler's ambition to absorb Austria and at least part of Czechoslovakia. To reassure his Czechoslovaks, their popular President Eduard Benes had to have his party newsorgan Ceske Slovo announce: "The London Times today is no more than the mouthpiece of an influential group of titled people who in their paralytic fear of Germany are working at all costs for Anglo-German Rapprochement."

The Times itself last August called such Rapprochement "the main purpose of this paper." The titled group behind the purpose is headed by Major Astor and the

Marquess of Londonderry, who last autumn persuaded the Prime Minister to send another of their group, Lord Halifax, to talk Rapprochement directly with Adolf Hitler (TIME, Nov. 29, et seq.). How far this attitude of the Times had gone was pointed up last week when London's liberal New Statesman and Nation intimated that it had caught the Times off base.

"Many readers of the Times," declared the New Statesman and Nation, "must have been puzzled by the following sentence that appeared in the Times'?, report of Mr. Parker's speech in the debate on Foreign Affairs on December 21st:

" 'It was a great pity that what used to be considered the leading organ in this country--the Times--should become the organ on behalf of the British Government. That was the present position of that paper.'

"What Mr. Parker really said is given in Hansard-as follows:

" 'It is a great pity that we should have what used to be considered the leading organ in this country, the Times, becoming an organ on behalf of a foreign government. That is the present position of that paper.' "

Britons, even those who approve the pro-German leanings of Major Astor and his friends, could not remember that the sacrosanct Times had ever before been accused of such journalistic and political cheating.

*Unofficial name for the official reports of Parliamentary debates.

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