Foreign News: Less a Friend

Nazi Germany has had no stancher friend in England than the tall, handsome 60-year-old Marquess of Londonderry, who owns vast estates which make him one of Britain's wealthiest autocrats. In Germany Lord Londonderry has made personal friends with Führer Adolf Hitler. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Aviation Hermann Goring, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Lord Londonderry is a potent friend because he is chairman of the Conservative Party. As entertainer in chief to Conservative Governments, he holds brilliant gatherings of lords, ladies, ministers and diplomats which have dazzled many a fiery Laborite. He has been a potent behind-the-scenes figure in Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing the dictators. Last September the Marquess bobbed up at Munich at just the time Friend Chamberlain was arranging for Friend Hitler the big Czecho-Slovak handout. Even after Munich Lord Londonderry advocated a deal on colonies further to appease Nazi Germany.

Last week, therefore, it was bad news for Nazis when Lord Londonderry changed his mind. In a speech before the Empire-minded Overseas League in London, he called upon Mr. Chamberlain to pledge his Government not to "sacrifice an inch of territory or one individual" to Nazi colonial demands. For good measure he added: "We cannot hand over any population to a country which seems bent on exterminating a section of its community or on reducing them to a situation which calls for condemnation by every right-minded man and woman throughout the civilized world."