NEWS OF THE WEEK
LET no one suppose for a moment that there is any kind of parallel between the action of the British Government in declining to renew the permits of three of the eighty German journalists in this country and of the German Government in announcing that the chief correspondent of The Times in Berlin will be expelled unless he is withdrawn. It has been expressly stated that the stay of the German correspondents is being terminated because they have engaged in certain activities completely unconnected with their journalistic work. The Times correspondent, it is explained with an astonishingly crude naiveté, is to go because he has been sending messages which the Nazi Government does not like. Actually, of course, it is an act of mechanical and unintelligent reprisal. Germany has expelled at least five British correspondents and many others. So has Italy. It was foolish and high-handed, but within the rights of the country concerned. No one protested or retaliated. But the moment Germans are required to terminate their stay in England, the German Government, secretly delighted no doubt at some semblance of an excuse for getting rid of a correspondent who has committed the supreme offence of depicting National-Socialism as it is, reacts with one of those characteristically blustering gestures which from time to time dispel once more all hope of a real understanding between the British and German peoples. It is a gesture which, in fact, though unintentionally, confers signal honour on The Times correspondent, Mr. Norman Ebbutt, and The Times itself can be relied on to handle the situation with dignity and wisdom.
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