Not Too Soon London “times” Comments: Danger is It May Be Too Late to Prevent Serious Disorder

The Gorman Government’s decision to suppress the semi-military organisations of the National Socialists has not been taken too soon. The danger, indeed, is that it may have been taken too late to prevent serious disorder, the “Times” declares in its editorial to-day. A year or two ago, it continues, before it attained its present strength, the Nazi army – it is nothing less than that – might have been dissolved with no greater difficulty than was the Red Fighting Front of the Communists in 1929, but it has now grown into a highly organised body of between 300,000 and 400,000 men, modelled down to the smallest detail on the Old Imperial Army and supported by a party which was able to poll over 13 million votes at the presidential election. To people outside Germany it has been a matter for wonder, the “Times” says, that the Government has hesitated so long to meet the flagrant challenge to its authority. The reactions to this necessary and courageous step will be anxiously awaited, for they will show whether or not the Government possesses the strength, as it clearly possesses the will to govern.

For years past, the “Daily Telegraph” editorial says, the storm troops and other formations of the Hitlerite army have been growing in numbers, in efficiency of organisation and in contempt of authority. They are a trained force far exceeding in strength the army of 100,000 men permitted to Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. All the elements of a disastrous civil conflict have long been present in Germany. It remains to be seen whether the action now taken has been taken in time.

The “Daily Express” suggests that in spite of the suppression of the Hitlerist storm troops, Hitler may yet live to be the “chosen ruler of Germany”. The outside world, it says in its editorial to-day, will watch events in Germany in the next few hours with anxious but fascinated eyes. The courage of Hindenburg’s move is magnificent. Nor can the justice of it be denied. Whether the country be Germany, or Italy, or Ireland, the existence of independent armies not under the control of the State is an open challenge to constituted authority. But it is easier for a millionaire to part with his last penny than for a would-be dictator to disband his army. If Hitler can disband his army and retain its loyalty, if he can acknowledge the power of the State without conceding his convictions, then, the “Daily Express” says, he will live to be the chosen ruler of Germany.

The “News Chronicle” takes the view, however, that hundreds of thousands who supported Hitler at the polls on Sunday have no real liking for his “theatrical political methods”. The storm troops already exist no more, it says in its editorial. Resistance would in any case have been useless, but the ease and completeness with which this apparently powerful organisation has allowed itself to be snuffed out seems to show that it had no real roots in popular favour.