CONTENTS
Chapter
1 Mr. Chamberlain's Policy
2 The British Empire Grew
3 How German Colonies Originated
4 The Cape for Holland?
5 Destruction of Czechoslovakia
6 The Way of Peace
7 Burglary by Consent
8 Tanganyika
9 Germany asked for more
10 South-West Africa
11 Growing Prosperity
12 The West African Colonies
13 Portuguese Colonies
14 Angola
15 Attitude of Portugal
16 German New Guinea
17 Looking Ahead
18 Feeling in Australia
19 What Mandates are
20 The Plea of Justice
21 Responsibility for today
22 A German plea
23 An equal Justice for all?
24 Expulsion of Jews from Germany
25 Inevitable end
26 Self-Determination
27 Friendship of the German people
28 Of those who died
29 Nazi intolerance
30 Results of abandoning Czechoslovakia
31 Hitler's contempt
32 Millions of decent Germans
33 Italian claims upon France
"You may be assured that
Germany will not cease to emphasise the colonial problem before her urgent and
fully justified colonial demands are fulfilled." Field Marshal Goering.
(German Colonial Year Book, 1939).
SHOULD WE SURRENDER
COLONIES?
I
Mr.
Chamberlain's Policy
Mr. Nevil Chamberlain desires
peace, as we all do. He aims, he says, to bring peace to the world, and no man
could have a nobler ambition, or one which would have the support of more
general or more fervent prayers.
He
sees, as we all do, that the threat to the world's peace comes from certain
states whose peoples, essentially as peace-loving as our own, have been subdued
to the control of ruling cliques having predatory policies, by whom they have
been organised and equipped for war.
Reticence
of the British Government
His
policy of assuring peace is particularly directed to the placation of the
present rulers of Germany which he rightly regards as the most formidable and
the most actively predatory of these militant states. He calls it a policy for
the appeasement of "Europe," and to this end he is prepared - with
some important qualifications - to revert to the status quo ante bellum,
and, in particular, he has been credited - or perhaps discredited should be
considered as an alternative word - with the intention of negotiating for the
return of some or all of the colonies lost to Germany through her defeat in the
War which ended twenty years ago. It is at least true that his government has,
at various times, avoided explicit statement that they would not be
surrendered, which, if such a policy were not secretly being considered, had
become urgently desirable, to avert the growth of false and dangerous hopes in
the German mind.
It is
true that, under formidable pressure, not only from the ranks of the
opposition, but from many of its own supporters, the present Government gave,
on December 7, 1938, a denial of such intention which was explicitly,
categorically, and even emphatically phrased, and which, to anyone unfamiliar
with the methods of political strategy, might seem to be sufficient and final.
A
Doubtful Pledge
But a
narrow examination of assurances which were the result of a prolonged Cabinet
meeting, where they must have been very carefully worded, and consideration of
the fact that they came from those who were repudiating, under pressure, that
with which they had certainly been disposed to palter before, may lead to a
less confident conclusion.
Mr.
Malcolm McDonald's actual words were these:
"I
do not believe that there is today any section of opinion in this country which
is disposed to hand over to any other country the care of any of the
territories or peoples for, whose government we are responsible either as a
colonial or as a mandatory Power.
"That view has been expressed this afternoon in every part of the House,
and that is the view which is shared by His Majesty's Government.
"We are not discussing this matter, we are not considering it. It is not
now an issue of practical politics."
The
treacherous ambiguity of this statement, apart from its general tenor, which
does not improve on close examination, is, as Mr. L. S. Amery was quick to
perceive, in the "now" of its final sentence, which implies, at
least, that it either had been, or would become, an issue of practical
politics, or perhaps both.
At the
best construction, it is an admission that the present Cabinet had contemplated
the possibility of such a surrender before the voice of popular indignation had
warned them that they could not sustain it; at the worst, it may, with equal
logic, be taken to mean that they have put the idea aside until the British
public shall be in a more placable or indifferent mood.
And if
this latter interpretation be wrongly held, the responsibility must be entirely
at Mr. MacDonald's door, for his statement was followed by a direct question
from Mr. Amery as to the meaning which that "now" might be construed
to bear, which he declined to answer; and that silence may be considered to
have been more significant than any words which he had previously selected to
speak.
It has
been argued by those who have sought to minimise the importance of the word he
used and the subsequent silence which he maintained that an ordinary - political
prudence will confine itself, in such pronouncements, to the present tense. It
is an argument which rates the public intelligence as low as its memory is
certainly short. Suppose the question had been whether it were proposed to
present the Third Reich with an English county, would Mr. MacDonald have
considered that "now" to be so necessary a word that he would not
even discuss the possibility of its withdrawal? It is too clear that the
possibilities of ultimate surrender had not left the minds of His Majesty's
Government, and that, without previous consultation, he could not withdraw a
word which he had been instructed to use.
Not
to be "Given Away"
There
have, it is true, been assurances by other members of the Government, equally
emphatic in tone, that no part of the British Empire, nor any mandated
territory - it is a distinction without a difference, as we shall come to see -
will, under any circumstances, be "given away." But again the
assurance becomes, on close examination, less conclusive than it was doubtless
intended to sound. For might it not be argued with sufficient plausibility that
some future surrender will be a matter of barter rather than gift? And bargains
with the Third Reich - even if portions of the British Empire were suitable
counters with which to play - have so far been so entirely one-sided that
barter and gift have become synonymous words, so far as either can be properly
applied to that which is rudely demanded, and violently taken away.
Certainly, there is no thought on the German side of giving anything in
exchange which is of solid value either to us or them. At most, it might be a
formula of unreliable words, from a source which has broken several of such
pledges before, and has kept none. The Koelnische Zeitung (November 9,
1938) has suggested that these huge territories, with all their populations and
wealth, should be handed over to German exploitation as a "generous
gesture. . . thus providing the preliminary conditions for co-operation
with a completely peaceful Germany."
"Stolen
Property"
Another German newspaper, even more directly reflecting the opinions of Herr
Hitler's Government, recently described these colonies as "stolen
property." The adjective is, of course, absurd, and indeed comically so
when coming from a nation which was built upon a deliberate policy of predatory
wars, and calls the conqueror of Abyssinia its ally; but its significance would
be hard to miss. What gratitude is to be expected for the return of stolen
property? Indeed, what gratitude would be due?
And
the return of these territories to a Germany which is to become
"completely peaceful" in consequence - with the obvious inference
that she will otherwise be liable to provoke war - is to be made in the name of
justice, and not of fear. Although it is to be observed that it is only the
results of one war, as affecting one country, that justice is concerned to
adjust in this radical manner. It is not proposed to return New York to Holland,
nor even the Cape of Good Hope; nor Louisiana to France; nor the Philippine
Islands to Spain. It may even be contemplated that world-appeasement will be
reached without restoring Abyssinia to the Abyssinians, although it was lost to
them in a more recent war. Justice in these matters does not appear to be
exactly blind, but rather to have a bad squint.
Still,
Mr. Chamberlain's Government has been, and still is, disposed to entertain this
policy. They may be right. They may see further than most. They may be inspired
by a better faith. They may be offering us more than a moment of present ease,
with a harder fate to be faced on a later day. But one thing is certain. We are
on a downhill road, so that every step we take makes it more difficult to
return; and it is one on which we have already gone far.
The
destruction of Austria and Czechoslovakia
We
have watched the destruction of Austria.
We
have done more than watch, we have assisted at the destruction of
Czechoslovakia, advising the victim to remain quiet as the knife entered her
throat. We have even paltered with the sickening lie that the principles of
self-determination controlled the event.
We
cannot alter this now, if we would: and there are many of us to whom its
consequences were not clear in advance, even if they are now.
It
must, at least, be well to look this next question of the ex-German colonies in
the face: to understand what it will involve, both to us and them.
On
Feeding Tigers
There
is one thing that is sure. If we surrender them, we shall have the pleasure of
hearing Germany purr like a fed tiger. She will assure us that it is the last
meal she will ever ask. So far as she is concerned, we may anticipate peace for
a considerable period, providing we cease to interfere in matters which, she
will tell us, with her usual courtesy, are no business of ours.
More
than that, if we are complaisant regarding Hong Kong, and a few other distant
trifles, of which most of us hardly know the names, there may be peace for us
through the whole world, both next year and the year beyond. We are a rich
empire. If the need arise, we can feed more tigers than one.
For
those of us who love peace, it has the sound of a most pleasant dream. But to
what manner of world shall we wake on the next day?
It is
a question reasonably to be asked; and, if at all, it should be asked now.
Too
Late for Regret
It is
not merely that, if we surrender these colonies, it will afterwards be too late
for regret. If we allow the issue to drift, as we are now doing, until the
German people have become inflamed with expectation, it may be too late to
decline without facing a war in which our allies would be fewer than might have
been on an occasion which has now gone.
The
was a day on which Austria might have been saved; but we let it pass.
The
was a day shortly following the rape of Austria on which Czechoslovakia might
have been saved. It is gone now.
We did
nothing then; and when we began to bleat sympathy, it may have been too late
for anything but war to have saved her from the invasion which she endured.
But
let us not deceive ourselves as to what occurred. Herr Hitler, entering Krumau,
boasted that he had come to a "reconquered" land, which he had won by
merely baring a bloodless sword. He said nothing about equity or goodwill, for
truth has an obtrusive quality; and our aversion from calling what had occurred
by the right word is a shame he sees no reason to-share, and not much to
pretend.
Methods
of Butchering
But before
the rape of Czechoslovakia he was disposed to describe what he intended to do
by a smoother word; and before the colonies are surrendered to him he
will be equally willing to talk about friendship, justice, and peace. If you
can coax a pig through the slaughter-house door by scratching its back, is it
not a natural thing to do? But after the door is locked on the inside, there
will be a different scene.
A
directly official statement issued (October 23, 1938) from the German Foreign
Office in Berlin says that "a healthy sense of right" demands the
return of colonies which were "wrongfully taken." If that contention
be true, then their return is a matter of equity, which no other consideration
should cause us to disregard.
But is
it so? Is there a special dispensation for Germany, or is it a Nazi doctrine
that all spoils of war should be periodically returned? Or perhaps she
has come to see that they should never be taken at all?
A
Change of Heart?
If so,
she has had an extreme change of heart since she imposed the treaty of
Brest-Litovsk on a conquered foe, and, in that case, her sincerity would have
been admirably demonstrated by inviting Europe to consider how the severities
of the treaty could be undone.
She
would say that it is impossible now. Too much has altered since then. So it
has. The injustices of one generation cannot be put right by the next. The past
is dead. If inequities of any kind exist today, let the whole world unite to
adjust them now, but they cannot be assessed by appeal to the conditions of
other days. We must look at things as they are.
On
these lines it is possible that Germany might advance an argument which has a
more plausible sound. She might say: "Forget the past, if you will. But is
it present justice that other nations should have great colonial empires, while
I have none? Is it the way of peace to let such conditions endure?
An
Argument to be Faced
This
is an argument which has to be fairly faced, to whatever conclusion it may lead
us; and in seeking its answer we may have to consider how both our colonies and
those of Germany were acquired, what they have been to us, and most particularly
what they now are.
We may
also have to ask what, if any, disadvantages, military, political, or economic,
Germany may suffer through having no such possessions.
But
there is one thing to be first observed, if we have the courage to look at this
question with honest impartial eyes. Such claims, such arguments, bad or good,
may not be applicable to Germany alone. If present equity be the argument, then
other European countries may urge that they have no colonial possessions
approximating in extent or value to their own populations, or even to the
relative number of the emigrants whom they send abroad.
A
strict equity would give Poland a clearer claim than even Germany would be able
to urge. Suppose Poland were to contend that, owing to her dismembered
servitude during the nineteenth century, she had lost her opportunity of
sharing in the scramble for colonial possessions which took place during that
period, and that, now that her integrity is restored, she is entitled to expect
that other nations, as an elementary equity, will adjust this difference?
Should not France be expected to give her some part of her North African
Empire, and England, being more richly endowed, perhaps Jamaica and New South
Wales?
Should
not Czechoslovakia, in contrast to the fate she has experienced, have been
offered a portion of the Dutch East Indies, and the Belgian Congo been shared
with Rumania, Sweden, Switzerland, and other comparatively uncolonied
countries?
There
might, even in a court of international equity, such as the world has not seen,
be a negative answer, but it might be one which would apply to Germany equally.
Let us consider first how our colonial empire came to be, and what it is today.
II
The
British Empire Grew
The British Empire is, in some
features, unlike any precedent organisation, racial, geographical, or
political, within the limits of recorded history.
It is
first observable that it was not made. It grew. It spread by an organic
process; in which respect it is in vital contrast to the cardboard imitations
which were deliberately cut out by other nations who have envied that which has
been, and remains, antipathetic to their own genius.
Its
nearest counterpart is the United States of America, which is not surprising,
that great confederation having sprung from a most vigorous seed of the same
tree.
It is
a characteristic of our national temperament, which is commonly, and quite
wrongly, attributed to hypocrisy by other nations who do not understand us - we
cannot complain of that, often having difficulty in understanding ourselves -
that we are rather ashamed than otherwise of an achievement, and a consequent
world position, of which some would see occasion to boast.
We are
particularly sensitive respecting the circumstances under which our ancestors
entered upon and acquired these half-empty lands, and sometimes attribute to
those bold-hearted pioneers degrees of moral turpitude which greatly exceed the
facts.
The
British Colonial Empire was not conquered by the military violences of a nation
organised for aggression, as Germany certainly is today. Its acquisition was
rather discouraged by successive Governments, lukewarm to its implications, and
embarrassed by the problems it raised.
The
Flag Followed Trade
Trade,
the proverb says, follows the flag. So it may do. But it was rather the case
with us that the flag followed trade. It was the enterprise of British
merchants that gave us so many foot-holds in Asia; and the extension of rule in
India resulted from war with French settlers and the changing alliances of its
discordant factors, and gave the weak and mingled peoples of that huge
peninsula a larger measure of freedom, higher standards of government, and a
more settled peace than they had known from when Delhi looked up to a Turkish
flag.
But
was the English nation responsible or grateful for this? Warren Hastings was
impeached on his return to England. So was Lord Clive.
Many
colonies, including parts of South Africa, became ours as the by-products of
European war.
Are
Peace Treaties Lease Treaties Only?
If
peace treaties can give no valid title to possession, the Cape should go back
to Holland on the same day that South West Africa is returned to German. Or is
there some mystic force in a demand that is made twenty years after the
surrender has taken place? Is a colony taken from a defeated foe to be
considered held on a twenty years' lease, becoming a permanent possession only
if no demand be made at that time?
Other
- and some of the most extensive and valuable - parts of our Overseas Empire
were the fruits of hardy pioneering in empty lands, or of discoveries in
un-charted seas.
Australia's
Long-empty Land
Australia lay in a desirable, almost vacant virginity for centuries during
which it might have fallen to Japanese immigration, had the seamen of that
nation been bold and searching enough to enter its lonely seas.
A
virile island race, which, though not indifferent to comfort, preferred to
worship at the altars of nobler gods, and which had not been taught to contemn
the value of its own sons, did not only seek to market its goods wherever those
could be found who would barter or buy, but sent out cargoes of living men to
populate these distant, desolate lands.
The
history of British colonisation - which has paused during our generation,
though all those who have faith in our race, and its ideals, or desire that it
shall have the strength in future days on which not only its security but its
peace must finally depend, will pray that it may resume - included many noble
and generous episodes, and others that deserve blame, which they have not
failed to receive in our own tongue.
Pioneering
Records
There
are rough pioneering records of those who did not stint their own blood, nor,
under provocation, to shed that of others. They commonly endured a two-fold
struggle against the savage nomads of half-vacant lands, and the indifference
or hostility of Home Governments, which would not give them support.
They
are imperfect records of human heroisms, failures or faults, which are
eternally unchangeable now. What was wrong we should not aim to condone. But it
might be difficult to find, in the whole long confused record of British
Colonisation, an parallel to the cold-blooded plot by which the present Italian
government prepared for the destruction of Abyssinia, years before the incident
occurred which was made the cynical pretext for the quarrel it had resolved to
pick.
It is
futile to condemn or condone that which is past. Our ancestors have gone beyond
any judgment of ours, and our responsibility is no more than to see that their
sins or errors are not repeated - nor the fruits of the valour which was
theirs, and the hardships they endured, thrown away by ignobler hands.
We
have to consider what the British Empire is now; what we have done for these
German colonies which we accepted as cadet members thereof; what valid claim,
if any, Germany has upon them now; and what will happen, both to us and to
them, if we cast them out from our own communities, to be retaken by her.
III
How
German Colonies Originated
The German colonies were more
recently and more deliberately acquired than those of other European nations,
and in contrast to the virile, spontaneous spreading abroad of a people whose
Governments acted in a spirit of indifference, or even timid restraint, the
German Government was active for their acquisition, while its people were
indifferent to or even ignorant of the exertion it made, not to guide or
restrain a natural exodus of population, but to acquire territory which it had
neither discovered nor colonised, by deliberate violence or bargain, for its
own aggrandisement.
It
came late on the scene because the German Empire is no more than a recent
combination of a number of small separate states of Northern and Central
Europe, which were (more or less) of the same language and the same blood; and
even this amalgamation was not the spontaneous expression of any popular urge,
but was the plotted policy of the Prussian kingdom, and achieved by drawing
them into united military adventures; to which end, wars were forced
deliberately upon three peaceful neighbours, and William, King of Prussia,
became William, Emperor of Germany, in 1872, amidst a Europe which had already
paid a most heavy price in blood and tears for this assertion of German power.
Forty
years later they made, as we know to our bitter cost, a determined effort to
secure wider supremacy in Europe, which we materially assisted to foil. Now a
German Government more ruthless, more predatory, than any which went before,
demands that it shall be put back in the position from which it struck previously,
if not more than that. Ands its offer, in substance, is that, if we surrender
all it desires of us, it will leave us alone, providing we remain quiet while
it plunders in other fields.
During
the first forty years of the existence of the German Empire - between 1872 and
1914, to be exact - it acquired, mainly by aggressive pressure on its
neighbours, substantial overseas territories, in which it did a very moderate
amount of colonisation, and was so far from improving upon the precedents of
its European neighbours that its attitude to the native races it encountered
was far less paternal than that of England had become at that period, and less
fraternal than that of France.
Negotiations
for Colonies
Its
constant pressure upon the good nature and peace-seeking disposition of
successive British Governments would have been even more productive, and would
have intensified present problems proportionately, had it not failed, time
after time, to recognise when the limit of concession had been reached, and
lost all by excessive greed, or by making some proposal of secrecy, or of bad
faith to a third party, such as the most complaisant British Foreign Secretary
could not endure. But, even so, they remain, to all who study them, an almost incredible
warning of the extent to which the English Foreign Office will surrender to
persistent blackmailing pressure, or pleas for "good-natured"
concessions, if the public be ignorant of, or indifferent to, the event.
The
history of these negotiations is open to all who care to read it with impartial
eyes.
South-West
Africa
In the
case of South-West Africa, it was admitted that England had a prior claim which
could not be ignored, and - as will be seen when we come to a detailed consideration
of that territory - it was only the hesitant reluctance of the Cape Government
to assume responsibility, which, as far back as 1876, the native chiefs had
petitioned to accept, that opened the way for the establishment of a German
trading station upon the coast, and subsequently to a formal German annexation,
in which the British Government acquiesced.
Subsequent German brutality led to the Herero war, which continued for two or
three years, until that gallant native race, by battle, by brutal massacre, and
by flight into other territories more mercifully administered, had lost eighty
percent of its population.
If
this be taken as an ex parte statement, let the Hereros - whose numbers
have now doubled under a kindlier rule - speak for themselves. Ask them what
their attitude would be to a German return.
The
Negro View
It is
easy for us to condemn our own treatment of the aboriginal races of Africa, and
it may be a most salutary thing for us to do. But the native African is the
best witness of this. He has suffered, and, with important qualifications, been
dispossessed of a land that he loosely held. His opinion is something more than
academic. He observes, he communicates with those of his own blood over vast
territories differently administered. He experiences, and does not quickly
forget.
He has
seen much of British domination. (He has also seen such things as the
Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the Basutoland administration, which would be
outside Nazi imagination.) Of German rule he has seen less, but he might call
it enough. Ask the natives of any part of British Africa whether they will be
content to be transferred to a German control. Ask the Hereros, who have known
both! And this control would not be that of the old German Empire, of the
comparatively tolerant Bismarck regime. It would be that of the intolerable
Nazi tyranny, intolerant of any freedom of faith or speech, even among those of
its own blood. What would be its conception of native African rights? What its
treatment of any who should not bend to its ruthless will?
Enlisting
Africa
This
thought brings another of an even more serious and more sombre kind. In all our
wars, it has been a settled policy not to enlist or accept the services of the native
African, unless for local operations against those of their own blood. There
are fundamental reasons for this, and we have acted upon it very much to our
own disadvantage on more than one occasion. When the Boers invaded Natal, the
Zulus were resolved and eager to rise against them in the British cause, in
which event the investment of Ladysmith would not have occurred, and there was
the utmost difficulty in dissuading them from this course. In the Great War,
the Basutos offered to raise regiments for active service, which were declined.
(They then raised a sum of £50,000 - very large for them - towards its cost, as
a voluntary demonstration of loyalty to the Empire. If natives in any German
territory showed a similar spirit, its record is not easily to be found.)
Prospects
of African War
But
what will happen if the Nazis should act in a contrary spirit? If they should
arm the natives of whatever territories they should occupy, and train them for
war? Would it be possible to avoid taking the same course in whatever parts
might remain British? And would not a new horror be added to the war which,
sooner or later, would devastate the African continent? A war that would surely
come, for anyone who can suppose that the Nazis, having once strongly established
themselves there, would remain permanently at peace, must have a most sanguine
mind. It would be more probable that the pretexts and occasions for future
aggressive wars would be worked out in Berlin before the first regiment had
sailed to make its goose-step in the "reconquered" lands.
This
question of the acceptance of native Africans as comrades in arms might raise
itself even earlier, if the South African Union should decline to acquiesce -
as it would if it should prefer present danger to future ruin - in the British
surrender of the territory which it now administers. Shall we say that the
Hereros are not to take up arms for the freedom for which they fought so
stubbornly once before? Shall we turn our guns upon them? It would become a
question of the utmost gravity to decide whether it would be legitimate, or
possible, to forbid them to take up arms against those who massacred them
before.
IV
IT may have been taken as jest
rather than serious argument when it was proposed that the Cape might be
returned to the Dutch, as its earlier owners, who only lost it by naval defeat.
But if we ask ourselves why that suggestion has an absurd sound, we
shall find that it goes to the root of the argument for the return of the
ex-German colonies, and shows that root to have a rotten core.
The
Cape for Holland?
For
the decisive reason which would prevent even the discussion of handing over the
Cape of Good Hope to Holland is not that it belongs to Great Britain, but that it
belongs to its own people; and if those people seriously desired to be
governed from Amsterdam - or Berlin - it is certain that England would not fire
single shot to obstruct the realisation of that curious ambition. But unless
it should be desired by them, the whole power of the British Empire (forgetting
that they have debated at times whether they are under a kindred obligation to
us) would be exerted for the defence of their freedom.
Two
Conceptions of Empire
That
is the crucial difference between the Nazi conception of Empire and our own. We
may not always have seen so clearly, though this conception is self-evolved. It
has been learned from no other land. But our present is not our past. The
Dominions and Colonies of the British Empire are free to work out their own
destinies. Some are adult, and some still too young or feeble to stand alone.
But the intention is the same for all.
And is
it not an obligation of honour that the ex-German colonies shall be free to
fulfil their own destinies in the same way? Give them to Germany tomorrow, and
we know how much freedom there would be on the next day for all who would not
crouch to the crack of the Nazi whip.
They
have been accepted into a sister-hood of free nations, and, against their own
wishes, and without fault on their sides, can they honourably be driven out?
The
rape of Czechoslovakia was half Europe's shame. The shame of the surrender of
the African colonies would lie at our single door.
V
Destruction
of Czechoslovakia
Our subject is not the destruction
of Czechoslovakia, but it is impossible to weigh it justly without
understanding the equities of that unhappy event, on which an intensive German
propaganda has obscured the issues to many generous minds.
It has
been a common argument, even in English newspapers of customary sobriety and
intelligence, that what was done was right, though it was not done in the right
way. They have said (as would be true) that British people could not be
expected to fight to oppose the self-determination of some millions of Germans
oppressed by a foreign rule, under which they had been placed by obtuse or
malignant provisions of the Trianon Treaty.
Bold
and reiterated assertion of this half - or rather quarter-truth has secured its
wide acceptance among those who are thoughtless or ill-informed, but how far is
it divided from the realities of the position! How scanty is its cargo of
historical fact!
When,
in the history of the last thousand years, was any part of Bohemia German
territory? When did even Austria have any dominion there except by such right
as the sword will give? When, even under the heel of foreign conquest, were the
natural boundaries of Bohemia broken apart? Why are the Tyrolese Alps admitted
by Herr Hitler to be a heaven-set boundary, although there are hundreds of
thousands of Germans on their southern side under Italian rule, while the
ancient mountain frontiers of Bohemia have no similar sanctity?
What
precedent of history is there, what basis of logic, for the theory that if men
of a foreign race be invited to settle in a neighbouring country (as the
ancestors of the Sudeten Germans were a Czech king) their descendants have the
right not merely to return at will to their own land, but to expel or enslave
their hosts, in all districts of their adopted land, where they may have become
the more numerous? It is an argument by which some parts of Germany should have
been surrendered to German Jews! And is there no part of London which should
raise the Italian flag?
How,
if Germany were pleading for justice before the world, could she repudiate the
treaty which she had signed with Czechoslovakia, and the solemn under-takings
she had given to respect her territory so few months before?
Why if
she had confidence in her own claim, and desired no more than equity would
concede, did she ignore Czechoslovakia's broadcast plea that she would submit
her case to arbitration, which is surely much to concede when one state demands
a part of its neighbour's land?
Why,
if Hitler's heart bleeds for oppressed minorities of Germans who dwell in so
many European states, does he not propose reciprocal treaties by which they
would be granted the precise amenities which are enjoyed by minorities under
his own rule? He might find that signatures to such documents would not be hard
to obtain!
Why,
we may even ask, should not Czechoslovakia have stripped the Sudeten Germans of
their property and expelled them, with as much right as Hitler had to treat
Jews in that manner, whose ancestors had been settled in Germany longer than
Germans had made homes in the Czechs' land?
The
answer to this and some previous questions is, of course, that Czechoslovakia
was a weaker state than Germany; for which reasons also it was seemly for
Hitler and his colleagues to speak of Dr. Benes in terms of vulgar abuse, but
it would have been a different matter if he had spoken of them (with far
greater provocation) in the same style.
If the
wolf say that the lamb muddied the stream the accused creature must expect to
perish for that offence, and if he point out that he drank lower down, he must
be killed for the insolence of his reply.
Mr.
Chamberlain's First Visit
To
recognise such obvious facts as these is not necessarily to condemn the efforts
which Mr. Chamberlain unsuccessfully made to save the victim of aggression, and
successfully to avoid war. His first visit to Germany may be described as a
noble effort to avert a supreme catastrophe. It was approved by all who love
peace sufficiently to value the most slender chance by which it may be
honourably preserved.
Even
the concessions which he then agreed to press upon the Czech Government are not
beyond defence, if they were the best terms he could get; and especially if he
took that flight with the ugly consciousness in his heart that his government
had betrayed their country by assuring it of military preparations which they
had not made. We may give his purpose high praise, and economy of condemnation
to what he did.
The
Second Visit
And
for the conduct of his Godesberg visit there must be more confident praise. On
that occasion Hitler let his teeth show. Mr. Chamberlain could not hear the
proposals which were then made without realising that it was no liberation of
oppressed Germans at which they aimed, but the destruction by Germany of a
peaceful neighbour, which was to be accomplished either by threats or
bloodshed. His reply that he would communicate the proposed terms without
engaging himself for their acceptance was of unassailable propriety.
It
gained a few days' delay, during which the attitude of France, whose honour was
pledged to Czechoslovakia in a way in which that of England was not, could be
ascertained.
Of
Munich
0f the
visit to Munich, and what was agreed there, it is more difficult to speak, for
the whole of what occurred may not yet be known. On paper, something was
gained. Something even in fact - something of procedure at least - though much
less.
It is
when we come to what happened after that: to the fact that the Munich terms
were not kept: that after the Czechs had been persuaded to abandon their
fortifications, and become helpless, the International Council of Ambassadors
which was to be their protection abandoned them to German inroads which had no
racial pretext for their support, and which even exceeded the Godesberg demand,
that we feel that history will have no more to do than to apportion shame.
Betrayal
- By Whom?
To
obtain the majority which a decision would require, either the British or
French Ambassador, or both, must have yielded to German bullying, and settled
frontiers in favour of that country without regard to any principles of racial,
economic or geographical justice, or the instructions on which they were
pledged to act.
There
is no possible escape from this conclusion. The boundaries to which they agreed
are enduring witness of that to which they gave consent, either on their own
volition, or on such instructions from one or both of their governments as no
man of honour would have consented to carry out.
When
they had finished, there was no occasion for the plebiscites which had been
agreed, for all the districts in question - including some in which the German
population was not, and never had been, ten per cent. of the whole - were in
possession of German troops.
It is
a matter on which some public pronouncement should have been made, for,
whatever England's position may have been previously, from the moment that the
Czech army abandoned their country's defences on our advice, our honour was
explicitly pledged, as one of those on whom they relied to fix the new
boundaries, or to control the plebiscites which were to decide them.
We may
not have failed. Our ambassador may have given a solitary vote for justice, and
seen his French colleague support the German and Italian ambassadors in the
iniquitous proposals which were, in some way, agreed. Or he may not. We have no
right to conclude that. We have no right to conclude anything on a matter of
such gravity without proof. But, where England's honour is so closely
concerned, we had surely a right to know.
VI
The
Way of Peace?
Czechoslovakia is gone, but Mr.
Chamberlain's memorandum of peace with Germany remains. And he expressed at
that time the anticipation that he would be meeting Herr Hitler again, to make
further bargains of appeasement with him, though more recently his tone may
have been less hopeful, less assured, the subsequent actions of Germany having
given him reasons for that.
The
way of peace is attractive to all, but it is legitimate to ask what the nature
of these bargains is likely to be.
The
scoffing parody of the rather childish verse which Mr. Chamberlain quoted when
starting for Munich:
"If
at first you don't concede, Fly, fly, fly again,"
may be unjust in its implications,
but it has some sinister support in a remark; which Herr Hitler is said to have
made at that time, to the effect that he wanted nothing from Britain beyond the
ex-German colonies, and there need be no war about that.
It is
a remark which may be taken in either of two ways; as may that of Herr Hitler
in his speech of January 30,1939
"Germany has no territorial claims against England or France except
colonies. But this question alone would not justify war."
They
may mean that, while he ask politely and hope to get, a refusal will not break
the friendship so newly born.
Or
they may be taken as a singularly impudent suggestion of a contrary kind. And
this latter interpretation is, unfortunately, more in agreement with Herr
Hitler's customary methods of negotiation, and the press agitation for the
return of ex-German colonies - particularly in Africa - which has been
organised in Berlin, and which is also most actively at work in this country.
We have seen enough of German methods in the initiation of previous coups not
to recognise the signs of approaching crisis here.
And
this interpretation is unfortunately supported by another passage in the same
speech (January 30,1939), the plain meaning of which did not appear to be
widely observed, but which was of the greater significance because the general
tenor of the speech was considered to aim at the avoidance of any immediate
provocation. He said:
"One
thing or other will happen. Either property will be distributed on the basis of
force, and force will revise distribution, or distribution will be based on
right and reason, and then it will be impossible for a few Powers forever to
possess all the colonies."
That
is an explicit statement, with an inescapable deduction. Either "right and
reason" will hand over some parts of the earth's surface outside Germany
to Nazi exploitation, or it will be taken by force.
Only
the date at which agitation will be superseded by violence is left un-said, and
on that point there are two precedent agitations - those against Austria and
Czechoslovakia - which are complete in their consequences, to be observed, and
one - that of Italy for portions of the French Empire - where the same
technique is commencing to operate.
These
precedents give a particular importance to the intensive German propaganda
which has already begun, not only in that country, but in some directions here
also.
Campaign
of Suggestion
The
campaign of suggestion in some sections of the British Press, specifically that
which aims to influence ill-informed minds, is particularly ominous in its
implications. It is not necessary to suppose that our national Press is
influenced by Germany to lead to the conclusion that for some reason other than
a spontaneous desire to impart considered wisdom to its readers' minds,
inspired certain journalists to perpetrate quite recently this gem of
inconsequence:
"We cannot argue that the Germans, with whom we have made a naval treaty
and the Munich Pact, are unsuitable to rule native races.
"Accordingly, we have no longer any moral justification for withholding
colonies from them."
It is
the sort of argument which might be hurriedly written by a man suddenly
instructed to prepare the minds of his readers for the return of colonies to
Germany, and utterly unable to think of any reasonable argument in its support.
It is to be hoped that readers of this sort of matter will use their judgment
before coming to any hasty conclusion.
But no
one, who is not entirely biased, could have produced such preposterous
arguments upon a subject to which he had given independent consideration.
Why
should our "moral justification for withholding" ex-German colonies
depend solely upon their fitness to rule native races? And how can the question
of that fitness be affected, even remotely, by a naval treaty, or a Munich
Pact?
Yet
later, the same argument - if it can be dignified properly by such a name - is
repeated and supplemented in a leading article in the same strain which would
be amusing, if the subject were not so serious.
It
commences with the accurate statement that Hitler demands the return of these
colonies. It goes on to assert that in putting that demand forward Hitler makes
it indisputably clear that he would not back the demand by military force.
That
is how the declarations of Herr Hitler are frequently interpreted to the very
numerous readers of the national Press, many of whom must lack leisure or inclination
to examine this problem for themselves, but whose collective opinions may have
an important influence upon a decision of the gravest consequences.
It
concludes with this argument, which would be more pernicious were it less
transparently what it is, that the issue is a moral one and either the Germans
are entitled to the return of the colonies on the ground that they are now fit
to govern the natives, or we must dispute that contention completely and
destroy it utterly and unmistakably.
There
is an almost complete disregard for facts in the assumption that the unfitness
of the Germans to govern alien peoples is the sole question at issue; and most
reasonable minds might agree that, however great that unfitness may be, it
would be a particularly controversial - and offensive - reason to select, for
refusal when others are available.
Propaganda of such a misleading kind may not have any convincing force to
English readers, but it may have influences in Germany of the utmost gravity.
For though whether or not Herr Hitler would deliberately provoke war on this
issue may be in doubt, there is much less that he would bluff - perhaps too far
to retreat - if he should be misled as to the fortitude of our own attitude on
this issue.
VII
Burglary
by Consent
And so it seems that Mr.
Chamberlain's reward for assisting Herr Hitler to burgle his neighbour's house
is to be a similar visit to his own; but that, he is assured, will be no
occasion for summoning the police, as a friendly talk will agree in advance the
items of the swag which are to be taken away; and, after its removal, he may be
allowed to put a moderately good lock on the door, for such safeguarding of
what remains as it may be possible to reach, or worth while to attempt. That is
the position we have to face.
Mr.
Chamberlain, with the high purpose of averting a war which would profoundly
disturb European civilisation, has announced his aim to be "the
appeasement of Europe" And Herr Hitler, and his loud-speaking colleagues,
have announced theirs, which includes the return of all the colonies which they
lost in the last war, and the gathering of all European people of German
descent into a single state.
If all
that can be smoothly arranged, it may be reasonable to suppose that Germany
will not disturb peace so long as she may find ready obedience to any further
conditions she may exact from neighbours of narrowed boundaries and diminished
prestige. (Whether the remains of the British Empire would find peace in other
directions is a different matter.) For, under suitable conditions, Herr Hitler
believes in peace. We have his own word for that, and for what those conditions
are:
Hitler's
Pacifism
"The pacifist-humane idea," he says in Mein Kampf, "is quite a
good one in cases where the man at the top has first thoroughly conquered and subdued
the world to the extent of making himself the sole master of it. Thus,
first the struggle, and then the Pacifism."
So, if
we start down the road that Herr Hitler points, we cannot say that we have not
been told where he expects it to end.
Candidates
for Appeasement
The
appeasement of Europe has commenced already. Austria has been appeased. With
Mr. Chamberlain's concurrence, Hitler has appeased Czechoslovakia. With a short
interval for the appeasement; of the ex-German colonies, the process, if it be
so allowed, will doubtless continue in an equally efficient and satisfactory
manner. This process, which Herr Hitler's own book describes so frankly, and to
which he has so exactly adhered, will involve the appeasements, in different
degrees of Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia, Rumania,
and Lithuania.
After
that, strengthened by such good meals (during which his Italian friends will
have been similarly occupied in appeasing France), he may feel equal to the
appeasement of Alsace-Lorraine; and then of the Tyrol, to Mussolini's naive
surprise.
But
after the whole of Europe has been appeased, with this admirable German
thoroughness, what will the strength of Germany be? What friendships will
England have? Of what manner of peace will she be assured? It will not be the
peace of the "strong man armed that keepeth his house." It will not
even be the quiet peace of the grave.
Perhaps there may be an "incident" where the frontiers of British and
German Africa meet. Such matters are not hard to arrange. And after that there
will be the peace of shame; or desperate, far less equal war than we could be
required to sustain today.
European
Conference
But
Mr. Chamberlain has a better plan. He will not leave it to Herr Hitler to play
his hand in his own way. He will work for a European Conference; so it is said.
It may
be called a good plan. But it is sanguine anticipation that Hitler will assent,
unless it be very firmly pressed, and not then unless moved by other influences
than those of friendship for his Munich guests.
It
would be too like a partnership of butchers (not that it would be exact to
describe Mr. Chamberlain in that way. His part has rather been that of the
butcher's assistant: his occupation to rope the victim) calling a conference of
horned cattle, and demanding contribution of beef.
Such a
conference would be too likely to lead to a combination of countries
unimaginative enough to resent the mutilation of their geographical and
economic integrities, even in so worthy a cause. And, in combination, they
would be of a most formidable power. But Hitler will prefer that they shiver
separately, hoping that it may not be their turn to be carved up for the next
dish.
The
Way of Peace
Peace
is the common prayer of a world on which science is inflicting troubles enough
without the added burden of war. We are all agreed about that. The question is
whether it be the way of peace to allow Germany to advance to a yet more
insolent power. Whether the sole hope of a tolerable peace may not be to meet
her now with a firm and united front. A poor hope, perhaps. But perhaps also
the only one. With the possible consequence of awaking terrible war - or the
alternative of a worse on a later day.
The
allusions to Mr. Neville Chamberlain in this representation of the position are
not inaccurate, but yet, without qualification or addition, might be unfair in
their implications.
He is
fighting for the peace of a threatened world, with a sincerity which even his
enemies, whether at home or abroad, cannot deny.
To
test the sincerity of the dictators, even at some generous risk, may have been
no more than a gamble, yet it may have been well worth the attempt.
Against the bad faith which abused the terms of the Munich settlement, the
intensification of Germany's military preparations, the monstrous persecutions
of German Jews, he has opposed an attitude which has gradually hardened. It is
evident that, if his courage and determination are not lessened, his confidence
is reduced, as has been shown by his recent statement in the House of Commons
that it will be useless to hold any Conference of Europe Powers unless they
show previous evidence that it is in a Spirit of good will that they will come
together.
And it
is to be observed that the dictators of Europe are two, and that neither of
them would be loyal to his present partner for half a minute if - it may be a
slender if - he should think it to his country's interest to make an opposite
alliance.
But
let us see now just what are the ex-German colonies which have passed into
British hands, and what their surrender would mean to their present
inhabitants, and to us.
VIII
Tanganyika
Taking Africa first, and avoiding
present discussion of such ex-German colonies as did not fall to British hands,
it may be convenient to give precedence to consideration of the Tanganyika
territory, not necessarily as more important than South-West Africa, but as
being that which appears to be most directly threatened, and in the greater
danger, because it has only the British Government to speak and decide on its
behalf, and South-West Africa is under the direct protection of the Union
Government, which has had the courage to say that it is not either to be given
or bartered away.
Ideas
from Italy
The
German anticipation in regard to the realisation of its ambition in equatorial
Africa is so confident that a school has already been established in Berlin for
the training of young women in tropical cookery and medicine, and in study of
native African tongues, with direct reference to this territory, although there
is an alternative proposed in the Italian press. A recent article in the Popolo
di Roma stated as a known fact (which we are not obliged to believe) that
the British Foreign Office is preparing an alternative plan, which would cede
to Germany certain portions of equatorial Africa of which the writer professed
to have detailed information, to which would be added territories on the north
shore of the Gulf of Guinea, and in Angola. The fact that these lands belong to
Belgium and Portugal presented no difficulty. They are to have no more right of
decision than had Austria or Czechoslovakia; but they are to be treated with
more show of justice, at Britain's expense. They are to be compensated
by gifts of "British territory elsewhere" - there is a sufficient
vagueness about that to rouse unrest in almost any part of the British Empire
where confidence in the courage of our Government may have been shaken by
recent events - or heavy payments of British gold!. . .
Europeans
in Africa
There
is a vague idea among many people who are acquainted with the history of East
Africa that it is inhabited by negro races which were happy and free until they
were brutally subdued by inroads of white settlers from Western Europe. The
truth, confused and contradictory in detail, as the history of, wide areas,
many races, and long centuries, must always be, is largely of an opposite kind.
The
excellent harbours, and particular products of Eastern Africa have invited
settlement there in times of Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantian, Persian,
and Arab ascendencies. In the seventh century, when the tide of Mohammedanism
swept over the Eastern world, it found, and overcame, settlements far down that
coast which were inhabited by people of Persian and Arab blood, whose arbitrary
authority spread far inland with the effect of a blighting curse. For their
export trade was almost entirely in human life. The native African was as
"free," and possessed the land as much, as might be said of the herds
of North American bison while they were being destroyed by the rifles of human
foes.
In
Ancient Times
The
coming of the Portuguese, from when, in 1498, Vasco da Gama sailed round the
Cape, and entered Mombasa Bay, was fatal to the Mohammedan ascendency in these
regions. Eleven years later a Portuguese fleet destroyed, at Diu, the combined
Arab and Egyptian naval power, giving to their own country for more than a
century a scarcely challenged supremacy both inland and upon Indian Seas.
Early
in the seventeenth century, the Portuguese at Mombasa were massacred by Arabs,
and towards its close a three-year siege of the same place by the Imaum of
Muscat resulted in its capitulation, from which date the Portuguese position
was more precariously held, and at more southerly ports, so that the Arab
vice-royalty at Zanzibar became the governing authority over a wide inland
area, and the atrocities committed under this regime during the eighteenth
century, and, with some modifications, until the middle of the nineteenth, were
of an appalling nature, both in their character and extent.
The
Slave Trade
But,
during the last century, British influence began to be increasingly felt, and,
to the confusion of those who can find nothing but evil to say of their own
race when it ventures into remote and unfriendly lands, it was like the coming
of a humane dawn.
In
1822 British pressure upon the Sultan of Zanzibar secured a treaty under which
he undertook to prohibit the sale of slaves to "Christians," i.e. to
white men, or their export to Christian countries. This modified a trade which,
at that time, we had no power to destroy (and with which Dean Inge might say we
had no business to interfere).*
* I
should be sorry to do injustice to this versatile character, so I give his
actual words, taken from the Evening Standard, October 14, 1938: "We must
reconcile ourselves to the fact that if peace is the first interest of Great
Britain, as it certainly is, we cannot prevent things being done by other
nations which we think iniquitous.
"We cannot police the world. To ride abroad redressing human wrongs may be
all very well for Sir Lancelot; it only makes Don Quixote ridiculous. We are
right to make our protests. But when we are snubbed for our pains it is no use
to shake our fists and curse.
It
might be difficult to find a passage by any comparable contemporary writer
containing baser or more foolish words, but the reverend gentleman contradicts
himself so frequently that it may be unfair to treat any single passage as
indicative of a considered opinion.
This
one would be less deliberately discreditable, both to its author and the
newspaper that gave it publicity, had it not been followed (November 24, 1938)
by another article in which Dean Inge instanced some alleged atrocities in
Antigua and elsewhere more than two hundred years ago, and after exhibiting the
random inexactitude which disgraces some present day British journalism by
describing the seizures of Austrian and Czechoslovakian territories as
"both perhaps justifiable in themselves, but executed in a very
high-handed fashion," went on to argue that, as atrocities were
perpetrated by men of English birth, we ought to exercise "a little more
courtesy in criticising our neighbours."
If we
share the guilt of these alleged Antiguan atrocities, so that we must speak
with muted voices concerning German persecutions of Jews today, then by parity
of grotesque reasoning, those persecutions are justifiable, for all Jews must
share the guilt of the assassination of a German attaché.
And
unless Dean Inge will admit some time limit (of more than two centuries) which
will free us from this restriction, we are all committed to a
"courteous" tolerance of evil-doing to the worlds end.
* *
*
But
meanwhile explorers, British and others, had penetrated far inland,
discovering, among fertile uplands, the great lakes and mountain ranges amidst
which the sources of the Nile were finally mapped. In doing this they observed
that the negro population was in process of rapid extermination by the Arab
slave-raiders, and, with wider knowledge, efforts intensified to put an end to
that infamy.
The
British Navy at Work
The
British Navy became increasingly active, and the wholesale slave-trade was
greatly diminished by its efforts, though, up to 1870, the slaves exported
annually from Kilwa alone were computed at 32,000. It was three years later
that British pressure secured the closing of slave-markets and the suppression
of such traffic throughout these regions, since which date there has been no
more than an illicit, relatively small, and dwindling trade.
Through the whole of this period, Germany had no foothold whatever on the East
African coast, Her sole connection therewith - so far as the subsequent German
Empire can be identified with such an event - was a small and abortive effort
at colonisation during the seventeenth century by the Brandenburg East India
Company, which was almost eradicated by Dutch hostility, and finally liquidated
in 1717 by a payment of 7,200 ducats from the Dutch Government to the
Brandenburg Co., for which sum the Company resigned all claims to, and any property
it still had on, the East African islands or coast.
Germany
enters Africa
It was
not until 1884 - the same year that Germany asserted a protectorate over
South-West Africa - that the good-tempered complacency of the British Foreign
Office, badgered continually for colonial rights by the German Government, with
which it was anxious to live at peace, assented to the hoisting of the German
flag at M'buzini, and five years after the German Government declared a
protectorate over the whole Tanganyika territory.
Policy
of Appeasement Begins
Two
years later, England entered into a very curious treaty, in which she gave
Heligoland to Germany, and received less than nothing in return; its provisions
merely ratified and defined the extent of the German occupation of land to
which England had a far stronger right, and declared an English protectorate
over the Zanzibar littoral, which already existed in fact, and which was not
Germany's to give. The policy of appeasing Germany with gifts, for which we got
little thanks, had already begun.
IX
Germany
Asked for More
The African territories which
Germany held between 1884 and 1914 - no more than thirty years in all - were of
huge extent, and bore witness to the energy with which the Government of the
German Empire, during the few years of its existence, had elbowed its way into
the colonial field, but they were little compared to the areas of Africa which
it had intrigued, or sulked, or bullied to get. Incidentally, these would have
included the Seal and Penguin Islands, which it had represented as barren and
worthless rocks, and which a complaisant British Government might have been
soothed to grant, had not the Admiralty pointed out that they lay on a sea
route which £100,000,000 of British commerce annually passed, and the Cape
Government that they contained a harbour large enough to accommodate the whole
German fleet, and that they were of no possible value to Germany except
as a future menace to the security of the Dominion.
What
Germany Would Have Taken
They
were still smaller compared with the portion of Africa which Germany
subsequently mapped out for herself as her fitting reward if she should have
won the last war. It went completely across the continent, and would have given
her huge recruiting reservoirs of men, and naval bases which would have enabled
her to dominate both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, besides constituting a
"half-way house" to the South American continent, which she is
certainly ambitious to reach, and already actively intriguing to control - or,
at least, to do so for the last twenty years, as the time would now have come
when she would have been handing them back to their previous owners, with a
goodwill gift of all the "installations" she had constructed during
that period! That being, by her code, the routine procedure for territory
"wrong-fully" taken from conquered foes.
It may
not be a point of major importance, nor an argument needed where there are so
many stronger ones in the same scale, but it is a fact that this, and other
German colonies to which we shall come, were not surrendered by their mother
country as the result of her European collapse. It had already passed into
British possession, as the issue of local war, which the Tanganyika Germans had
themselves commenced by invading Kenya in 1914.
Invasion
of Kenya
Had
they been told then that, if they could have captured and retained Kenya, as
they had hoped to do, Germany would give it back to Great Britain twenty years
later, on the ground that it had been "wrongfully taken," or that it
would be a "generous gesture," they would have smiled excusably at
this interpretation of the verdict of war - war which they themselves commenced
in East Africa, as they did by crossing the Belgian frontier.
During
the first year, the Tanganyika Germans more than held their own. They were a
considerable military force, and they raised a native army of 12,000 men for
their support, They were driven back from their first invasion of Kenya, but a
counter-attack on Tanga, gallantly attempted with inadequate forces, was
repulsed with nearly 800 casualties. During the next year, the Germans made
more than one raid upon the Kenya railway, and though the Winifred
destroyed their only gunboat on Lake Victoria, and British naval forces
bombarded Dar-es-Salaam, and sunk the Konigsberg in the Rufigi River,
that cruiser's guns were salvaged and became powerful batteries in the land
engagements that followed.
Mojoro
Captured
Early
in 1918, General Smuts being in command of the British forces, the Lumi River
was bridged, and the Germans manoeuvred out of a retreat of forest swamps which
they had been fortifying since the war commenced; and from that time almost
continuous and sometimes heavy fighting drove them out of successive positions
until, on August 26, their head-quarters at Mojoro were captured, and Dar es
Salaam surrendered eight days later.
Flight
of the Germans
Desultory fighting against an enemy who took full advantage of country in which
communications were hard to maintain continued until the end of the war, but,
by that time, the remnant of the German forces had been pursued through
Portuguese territory into Northern Rhodesia, where, at the armistice, they
surrendered a mixed force of about 3,000 followers and 1,300 fighting men.
The
armistice did no more than register a success which was already as much ours in
East Africa as on the Franco-German front.
What
Tanganyika Is
The
Tanganyika Territory alone is of an area of about 360,000 square miles. It is a
tropical country, with a climate varying widely with its rising altitudes, but
not, on the whole, very suitable for European settlement. Malaria and other
tropical diseases are endemic, rains are heavy, and heat, at some altitudes, is
extreme. There are highlands in the south-west where the soil is fertile and
the climate good. During the German occupation, it attracted few settlers.
It has
now been under British administration for twenty years, and has made great
progress, only retarded during the last twelve months by paralysing uncertainty
as to whether it may be allowed to fall back into German hands. This doubt may
not be complimentary to England, but can we say it is undeserved? It could have
been relieved, and much dangerous expectation checked, by one definite word
from its Governor, which he was only recently allowed to speak, and which is
still only half believed.
A
glance at the present condition of the territory, and a summary of what has
been done during the period of English control, will explain how terrible, for
those who have trusted us, that uncertainty is.
Freedom
of Religion
Dean Inge
suggests that to be quixotic is to be absurd. If so, the absurdity of British administration
has been extreme. We have taken nothing for ourselves. We have allowed no
preference for British goods. We have taxed ourselves to expend upon the
territory £6,000,000, in ways which are not directly productive, and with no
clear prospect that it will be returned. We have granted absolute religious
freedom, which applies equally to Christians of every sect, to Hindoos, to
Mohammedans, and to the peculiar deism of the Masai tribes. We have developed
the cotton-growing potentialities of the territory, settling, for this purpose
about 25,000 Indians on the land.
Freedom
of Trade
The
imports of manufactured cotton goods were valued in 1936 at £648,576;
but this is no benefit to the cotton mills of Lancashire. Under our
self-denying administration, this trade is almost entirely in Japanese hands.
Apart
from Government goods, Tanganyika purchases more from German and Dutch sources
(combined) than from this country, the total of British imports being less than
25 per cent. of the whole.
Its
principal export, both in bulk and value, is sisal fibre, but cotton now
reaches a value of from half a million to a million pounds annually, which,
when the doubt of the future is removed, may be very largely increased.
Coffee
is extensively grown in the highland areas.
Gold
was first discovered under British administration in 1921. In 1936 production
had risen to an export total of £489,196.
Coal
is know to exist in large quantities and other mineral resources, now
undeveloped, are likely to prove of great value.
Free
Entry to German Settlers
Since
January, 1925, free entry has been granted to German settlers, and, in the
eleven years following, 3,068 Germans entered the territory under this permission.
The British still outnumber the Germans, if immigrants from the South African
Union be included in the former category; but, if this were not the case, it
would be interesting to see whether the Germans would argue that the
preponderance of these freely-admitted German immigrants would give their home
country valid claim to sovereignty over the land.
The
requirement of most governments is that immigrants shall either retain their
own nationality, or loyally adopt that of the land they enter.
The
new German theory appears to be that immigrants may both acquire rights in an
adopted land, and retain their previous nationality and allegiance, until they
become sufficiently numerous to enslave those who have so foolishly let them
in.
Population
The
population of Tanganyika at the end of 1936 was made up of:
Europeans 8,926
Asiatics (including about 10,000 Goans and Arabs) 32,255
Native
Africans 5,105,705
A year
earlier - the latest exact figures available - the European total had included
3956 British and South African Union settlers, and 2665 Germans. Since that
date the Germans have probably increased relatively and absolutely, though
still somewhat the smaller total; but it would be inexact to conclude that the
whole of the German population is desirous of being ruled from Berlin, though
with the example of what has befallen those Sudeten Germans who were loyal; to
Czechoslovakia before them, they may be reluctant to speak their minds. The
native population consists of eighty-five principal, and fifty-two smaller
tribes. Among these, sixty are of the Bantu group, two are of Persian or Arabic
origin, and most of the remainder are Masai, or other Nilotic tribes.
The
majority of the Asiatics are British Indian subjects, who would naturally
dislike being handed over to Nazi exploitation.
The
Dread of Exploitation
It is
in that thought of "exploitation" that the dread of people of every
religion or race, including many Germans, in the territory lies.
Germany has everything already which can be hers, if nothing be taken away. Her
nationals have entire trading freedom, entire religious freedom, entire freedom
to settle upon the land in equality with other citizens. How can her position
be improved, except at the sacrifice of economic advantages or personal
freedoms which are at present enjoyed by all? What, it may further be asked,
would any pledge she might give to respect present liberties or privileges be worth?
Even
those of her own blood would be less secure. Among the twenty-three Christian
Missions which are working in the country with complete equality now, there are
those of several German Protestant sects which are not very popular with the Nazi
Government. What would be their fate if they should dare to oppose the
exploitation of the native population which would certainly follow German
occupation?
And
what would happen to the British settlers who might be slow in making the Nazi
sign? Or to the Indian cotton growers, left to the mercy of that race arrogant
rule?. . .
Incidentally, there are two small portions of Tanganyika which are no longer
under British control. Following its British occupation, claims for parts lying
contiguous to Belgian and Portuguese territories were made by those
governments, and, in each instance, our Foreign Office good-temperedly admitted
the claim, and ceded the desired territory, as she admitted also a claim by
Italy to land South of the Juba river. Italy might well commence the New Deal
by handing back what she acquired thus to her German friends, to which we
scarcely could, and certainly should not, object.
The
present law in the High Courts is English. There are Native Courts which administer
local justice under the Native Courts Ordinance of 1929, over which the
Government has a final control.
Order
is kept by a police force of 60 European officers and about 1,600 native
police. There is a garrison of 1,000 men of the King's African Rifles. Beyond
that, the territory has no military protection at all. A contented population,
which includes over five million Africans, is kept in order without difficulty
by about 2,500 men who are mostly natives.
How,
and under what conditions, and to what result, could this territory be placed
under the Nazi heel?
X
South-West
Africa
We now come to South-West Africa a
widely different country from Tanganyika, in a more temperate zone, but with an
aridity which, for many centuries, caused it to be only thinly populated.
It is
still a poor country, and much of it can only become fertile if it can be
successfully irrigated, which is, at present, no more than a doubtful hope.
The
Diamond Beds
It has
great mineral potentialities, but the most interesting of its ascertained
resources are the diamond beds which lie along the seashore for hundreds of
miles south and north of the mouth of the Orange River. These, since their
discovery in 1908, have produced stones in years of favourable prices, to a
value of some millions. Very much greater quantities could be obtained, but the
mining has been restricted in recent years, according to the policy of the
South African Diamond Board, and during the depressed years 1931-4 was almost
entirely stopped. Prior to that, exports in twelve years had totalled about
£26,000,000. And since 1934 there has been a substantial revival.
It is
a comparatively trivial matter, when considered beside some of the major issues
involved in such a surrender, but it is worth observing that the transfer of
this territory to Germany would involve the possibility of ruinous
over-production, which the Diamond Board, in recent years, has made great
sacrifices to avoid.
Diamonds, with some unimportant qualifications, are useless stones. Their value
depends almost absolutely upon their scarcity. The industry has been
increasingly embarrassed during the last twenty years by the number and
richness of the new fields which have been discovered, and prices, particularly
during the lean years that followed the American financial crisis of 1929, have
only been sustained by rigid curtailment of production. The diamond beds of
South-West Africa are controlled by the Government, and are not allowed to
break the market, which, in other hands, they might easily do with the smaller
stones. . .
A
Pastoral Country
Apart
from mining of various kinds, as yet mainly undeveloped, South West Africa is
almost entirely a pastoral country. Prior to 1884, when the Germans appeared on
the scene, it was mainly occupied by more or less nomadic pastoral tribes, of
which the more important were the Hereros in the east, and the Hottentots in
the south.
The
Ovambos in the north were also a numerous people, but the majority of them were
in Portuguese territory, particularly until 1915, when a portion of the tribe
migrated southward, having had difficulties with the Portuguese authorities,
and preferring to come under British rule.
Petitions
for British Control
A
prolonged war between the Hereros and Hottentots, and other disturbances in
Namaqualand, had caused the chiefs of the Hereros and other tribes to petition
the Cape Government in 1878 to take over control, and appoint Resident
Commissioners to keep peaceful order. The Cape Government despatched a
Commission of Enquiry, which received formal orders of submission from numerous
chiefs, but the report on the country was not very good, and the Cape
Government shirked the responsibility and the possible cost involved. They did
nothing; and unsettled conditions continued for the next eight years, while the
German Government intrigued in London for permission to occupy the land.
In
1883 a Bremen trading company established a footing with some show of legality
by giving a chief in Namaqualand a hundred guns, some powder and lead, and £200
in English money, for 150 miles of land, and, as a correspondence which
followed between London and the Cape showed that the Cape Government could not
make up its mind to accept responsibility, the Germans were allowed to annex
the whole territory, with the exception of a British settlement already
established at Walvis Bay, and the islands along the coast.
German
Occupation
The
history of German occupation that followed was one of continual wars. Chiefs
who would have welcomed the overlordship of a British authority, which they
knew, from the examples of Basutoland and Bechuanaland, would have brought
justice and peace, resented a German invasion for which they had not asked,
which was conducted in a hostile spirit and had less consideration for them. In
1893 there was war with the Hottentots. In 1896 with the Hereros. In 1897 with
the Swartboois and the Afrikaners. In 1900 the Bastards, a pastoral tribe of
about 5,000, descended from white hunters and Hottentot women, were goaded into
rebellion. In 1903 there was rebellion among the Bondelszwartz tribe, and in
the following year the Hereros commenced a bitter war which they continued for
three years against the increasing military forces which the Germans poured
into the country, until, of the 100,000 they had been, 80,000 men, women, and
children, had died or fled into kindlier lands.
Destruction
of the Hereros
During
the next seven years there was no further resistance from the exhausted
remnants of the natives of this pastoral land. But they had learnt what the
Germans were. So, too, had all Africa's watchful millions, and it is a
knowledge which may have a sombre sequel of blood if we be cowardly or criminal
enough to offer Berlin a new lease of power, under the pitiless Nazi creed,
beside which that which went before may seem no worse than the storm of a
summer day.
When
war broke out in 1914, it might have been thought that the Germans in
South-West Africa, isolated from their Home Country by British command of the
sea, would have been content to remain quiet, in the hope that the thunder of
war would only rumble in distant skies. But their ideas were different. With
the psychological obtuseness which is the marvel of Germany's enemies, and the
despair of her friends, they supposed that the Cape Government would seize the
opportunity to break away from the Empire, or, at the least, that the Boer
majority of the population would be glad to do so, and would welcome some help
from them.
Germans
Invade the Cape Province
Before
the close of the year, ignoring the fact that their coast settlements had
fallen to the Union Defence Forces, operating from the sea, they invaded the Cape
Province. Joined by a rebel Dutch contingent, they fought two or three
un-successful actions, and, within three months, had been finally driven back
to the South-West territory.
Having
the choice between England and Germany to make, the bulk of the Cape Boers had
not hesitated as to which they would prefer. Union Forces, under General
Botha's skilful command, converged on the retreating Germans.
Plain
Words from the Cape Government
From
April to June, 1915, there was a systematic inexorable reduction of one
settlement town after another, until, on July 9, the German command,
out-manoeuvred and outfought, laid down its arms, and from that day the
territory has been administered by the Union Government, which, in contrast to
the hesitant attitude of the Foreign Office in London, has said, boldly and
plainly, that it has no intention of surrendering territory which it won on the
field of battle, and where, in the first instance, it should never have
consented to the German landing.
South
Africa has had an experience of German colonial methods; and she thinks one is
enough.
XI
At the commencement of the war, in
August, 1914, there were 12,292 Germans in the South-West Territory. At its
close, about half of these, including all Germans who had held official
positions, were repatriated to their own country. The remainder preferred, and
were unfortunately permitted, to stay.
From
that date the record of the territory has been one of growing population, and
increasing prosperity, subject to the important qualification that the period
of world depression, leading to the stagnation of the diamond export trade,
caused a sharp dip, which is now recovered.
Growing
Prosperity
The
sea-borne imports for 1919 were £1,135,116; for 1936, £1,959,826. The exports
for the same years rose from £1,678,554 to £3,084,168.
These figures speak for
themselves. But meanwhile, a proportion of the German population which was
allowed to remain has acted in a spirit of sustained disloyalty to their
adopted land,
Attitude
of German Settlers
That
there have been no serious measures of repression is due to a most tolerant
patience on the part of the Union Government, such as the English population
would be most unlikely to experience from the Nazis, if the territory should be
returned to them.
Martial law, under which the country was at first necessarily administered, was
abolished at the end of 1920, by which time all troops had, in fact, already
been withdrawn, and civil courts established.
A
Constitution was granted in May, 1925, which is substantially unaltered to the
present day.
A
Legislative Assembly of eighteen members was constituted, of which the Governor
nominated six, and twelve were elected. The German element of the population
secured several seats in this Assembly, and actually used them, both in 1930
and 1931, to vote against this electoral body having extended powers. Their
policy has been directed mainly to prevent the territory becoming a fifth
Province of the Union, which the majority of its inhabitants desire.
In
1924, when the question was last raised, the German members withdrew from the
Assembly, and subsequently resigned. The Union was then again petitioned to
accept the territory formally within its fold, subject to the conditions of the
Mandate from the League of Nations under which it had consented to act.
A new
election was held later in the year, after the wearing of political uniforms
and the open preaching of Nazi disloyalty had been banned, and the "German
Workers' Party" declared an illegal organisation; and the motion asking
for admission to the Union was passed by the two-thirds majority that the
constitution required.
This
request the Union refused. Full membership of its federation is, it decided
after two years consideration, a privilege which the conduct of the territory
as a whole has not yet earned. But administration under the mandate it will not
shirk.
Seditious
Activities
Unrest
among German population, attempts to establish a "Hitler Youth"
movement, and illegal recruiting activities, have continued, and have still
been met with more patience than they deserve. An explosion of persistently
disloyal elements would have been a wiser and salutary procedure.
And
meanwhile what grievances have these German settlers, or Germany, had? The
answer is, less than none.
Pages
could be written about the liberality of spirit in which a most liberal mandate
has been administered, and the patience forbearance with which it has been
sought to induce these German settlers to become loyal citizens of the South
Africa they have made their home. It has been fruitless, because it is not
freedom, but the domination of Berlin, which they make their aim.
Free
Trade with Germany
But it
should be sufficient to give one illustration of a spirit of administration
which Germany certainly will not emulate if she shall ever find herself in a
position to close that territory to foreign trade.
Of
goods landed at South-West African ports, 50 per cent. come from Germany, 25
per cent. from Great Britain, and 20 per cent. from the United States. (There
is also an overland trade, of which no analysis exists.)
The
fact is that we find here, as with Tanganyika, that Germany and Germans have,
or can have, equality of every kind. They are free to dwell in liberty. They
are free to trade. They are only not free to rebel, or to oppress the British,
South African, or native races among who they live.
What
more could they have, what changes could be made, which would not weigh down
the scale unfairly against British, Boers, or native Africans who share the
land with them, and certainly with no less than an equal right?
Even
the principle of self-determination, however it be defined, will not help them,
for the recalcitrant German settlers are far less numerous than the English and
Boers.
The
nature and effects of the mandate under which the South-West Territory is held
from the League of Nations has had no more than a casual reference, because
these mandates will be the subject of separate consideration. The German
population have expressed their wish for the mandate to be continued, though it
is difficult to see how it can be of profit to them.
Freedom
in South Africa
But
there is nothing on earth to prevent the whole of South Africa becoming part of
the German Empire tomorrow, if it should desire to do so. It is certain that
England would not fire a single shot to hold it against the will of its
citizens. And that is why it is so entirely certain that such a position will
not arise; and why the cause of liberty, or justice, or self-determination, or
anything else worth serving would not be served by the surrender of any part of
Africa, or of the British Empire elsewhere, to the tyrannous German power.
XII
The
West African Colonies
To complete the survey of the
ex-German African colonies, it is necessary to glance briefly at two
territories upon the western side of Equatorial Africa.
They
were both sandwiched between French and British settlements there, were both
conquered by joint French and British forces during the course of the War in
Europe, and were both divided between France and England at its conclusion -
France receiving much the larger shares.
Togoland was surrendered to a Franco-British invading force immediately upon
the outbreak of hostilities in August, 1914, and occupied from that date. Eight
years later - in July, 1922 - a League of Nations mandate confirmed an existing
fact by allotting two-thirds of it, almost 22,000 sq. miles, to France, and
about 11,000 square miles to Britain.
It is
a fertile tropical country, with a considerable negro population, partly
suitable for plantations, but with a climate in which white men exist with
difficulty, and where they cannot undertake manual labour.
Its
native population has so much diversity that forty-six distinct languages are
recognised as being spoken in the French territory.
British
Togoland
The
population of British Togoland (now under Gold Coast administration) is
somewhat less varied. In 1935 it was estimated at 338,650, among whom only 43
were non-Africans. Its exports are chiefly coco, palm-oil, rubber, copra,
kernels, cocoa and coffee, of which some are plantation grown, and others are
brought in by the natives to barter for European goods. Under an unselfish
British administration, state expenditure has so far exceeded income, but
prosperity increases, and, with existing circumstances, it may be anticipated
that its budgets will soon balance. There are now over a hundred native schools
established by various missions throughout the territory, with Government
support.
The
Cameroons
The
Cameroons were occupied by French and British troops in 1916. They were finally
divided by allocating about 166,000 sq. miles to French, and 34,081 to British
control; but it should be explained that the French portion included about
100,000 sq. miles which, until 1911, had been part of French Equatorial Africa,
and had been ceded by France to Germany in that year, in the endeavour to
satisfy Germany's clamorous demands for a "place in the sun," with
which both the Quai d'Orsay and Downing Street were so largely occupied during
the thirty years preceding the war. This territory was returned to French
Equatorial Africa, and the division of the Cameroon Territory remaining was
therefore in the agreed proportions of two to one.
The
British Cameroon Territory is now attached to Nigeria for administrative
purposes. It has a comparatively dense native population of from 800,000 to
1,000,000. There is fertile plantation land near the coast and the interior is
heavily forested.
Its
exports are similar to those of British Togoland, with the variation that
bananas are a main crop.
Like
Togoland, it is unsuited for European settlement, and here also Government
expenditure has, so far, exceeded revenue while its prosperity has increased
and its population multiplied.
XIII
Portuguese
Colonies
In view of the suggestions which
have been made in various quarters that the ambitions of Germany might be
satisfied by the surrender to them of one or both of the two principal Portuguese
colonies in Africa, it may be well at this point to take a brief glance at what
they are, and to consider with what aspect of decency, if any, such a transfer
could be proposed.
Portugal is a country with a great past, and a future which, if European
anarchy be averted, may be brighter than its more recent history.
So far
as exploration, conquest or colonisation can give good moral claim to lands
which had been occupied rather than owned by great herds of beasts and less
numerous of nomadic men, who were themselves hunted, if not for their actual
flesh, yet to be sold into conditions of beastlike servitude, Portugal must be
ranked first among European nations, where Germany has scarcely a place at all.
Not
only down the western coast, but round the Cape, and as far north as Mombasa
Bay, their primitive, high-sided, thirty-five ton vessels sailed perilously
through uncharted seas. They were not idealists, but the Moslem power which
they destroyed at Diu - one of the most decisive and momentous naval battles of
the Christian era - was more ruthless than they.
As the
centuries passed, their power decayed, primarily because the lower-built Dutch
vessels answered the helm better than theirs, and their influence and possessions
shrank. But they still held to wide territories in sub-tropical Africa -
Mozambique on the eastern, and Angola on the western coast.
During
the last century they have been fortunate in the fact that, apart from the
short period during which Germany appeared on the scene, they have had in
England a surrounding neighbour who did not abuse her strength.
How
they would have fared had Germany been in a similar position may be judged from
the circumstances of a treaty negotiation of 1898.
The
Portuguese colonies were then comparatively undeveloped - as they still are,
and as, but for European jealousies, they need not have been expended
profitably upon them, and the stronger lure of Brazil has drawn colonisation
away.
Portugal
Asks a Loan
But in
1898 Portugal was anxious to develop the resources of these African
possessions, and sought a loan. Relations between Paris and London were
strained, owing to the Fashoda incident which did not even remotely affect the interests
of Germany, but that country seized the occasion to blackmail the English
Government, as its habit was. It claimed a right to participate in the proposed
loan to Portugal, and explained its plans.
The
negotiations that followed, in which Lord Salisbury, Sir Edward Grey, Joseph
Chamberlain and Arthur Balfour each had his share of responsibility, appear
monstrous when they are coolly reviewed, but this cannot be fairly done without
full consideration of the difficulties of those times, which were as real and
in some aspects as serious as, though they may have been different from, ours.
But they are a lesson in the danger of relying the courage and discretion of
professional politicians to protect either the interests or the honour of this
country, when public opinion is indifferent or ill-informed.
Germany
Proposes a Plan
The
German Government proposed that they should be allowed to share in the loan,
but that no other European Government should be permitted to do so. The failure
of Portugal to make punctual repayments was to be anticipated, and was to be
made occasion for seizing the colonies, which was to be the subject of a secret
agreement, made in advance, by which the two creditors would settle how they
were ultimately to share the spoils.
But
perhaps sharing the spoils is a barely accurate description of that which was
not merely proposed but actually became a signed bargain during Lord
Salisbury's illness. England did little more than retain a reversionary right
to Lorenço Marques and Delagoa Bay, which, by a straightforward treaty with
Portugal, she already had.
A
Bargain Made
The
essential element of the bargain was that Germany should seize Portugal's
colonies at a future date, and that England should not interfere for their
protection: the unwritten consideration was that if France should make war at
that time for the advancement of her interests in the Soudan, Germany would not
take the opportunity of attacking us in a quarrel with which she had nothing to
do.
Germany had, at that time, no alliance nor any friendship with France, neither
had she any difference with England. Neither her honour nor her interests were
at stake. The proposal was blackmail in its crudest form. It was no honour to
British statesmen that it did not succeed. A whisper of what was happening
reached Portugal, the offered loan was prudently declined, and the Portuguese
colonies remained undeveloped.
Portugal
Takes Alarm
It
will be observed that German methods of negotiation were the same under the
Empire that they are now; and it is unsurprising that the German Government,
whose recognition of the sanctity of treaties, or other scraps of paper
(except, of course, anything which Herr Hitler and Mr. Neville Chamberlain may
combine to sign in the sight of an admiring world), has always depended upon
whether they were advantageous to herself, had the impudence, at more recent
dates, to invoke the terms of that abortive document as binding this country to
admit her prior claims upon the territory of our ally.
So,
through the bad faith of this cowardly intrigue, Portugal was denied a loan
which was imperatively needed in her own interests, and in that of her
colonies, which she would have trusted England to make, and which would have
been profitable to us. And the years passed.
The
administration of these colonies, while liberal by German standards, had been
deficient in many respects by ours, partly from lack of means, and partly from
lower conceptions of obligation to the aborigines of exploited lands, but
following the Portuguese revolution there have been evidences of a more liberal
as well as a more energetic spirit.
Mozambique
Portuguese East Africa - Mozambique - has, at present, stringent laws limiting
foreign European settlement. These laws certainly restrict either British or
German immigration, but while the present German conception of nationality and
of conduct proper to those who settle in foreign lands remains as it now is, it
would be hard to say that they are more drastic than the security of the colony
requires.
The
white population is about 25,000, and there are nearly as many non-European
immigrants, including many British Indians.
The
agricultural possibilities of the territory are very great, and recent
development, particularly in the cultivation of cotton, has been rapid.
There
is a native population of about four millions, but the "large number of
European soldiers," which, as we shall see later, are considered to be a
common-place of German colonisation, are not required either for external
protection or internal order.
There
is one ornamental squadron of cavalry. There are two batteries of machine-guns.
There are ten companies of native infantry, with white officers. That is all.
Portugal, secure in her treaties with Britain, relies peacefully upon a
surrounding neighbour who does not abuse her power. The Pax Britannica extends
beyond its own Commonwealth; and it is a matter upon which our honour is
vitally staked that that trust should not be betrayed.
Treaties
of Arbitration
During
the last hundred years England has contributed very largely to the worlds'
peace, and particularly to that of the, African continent, by submitting all
territorial disputes to arbitration, and has persisted in this practice in
spite of the fact that its continual, if not absolutely invariable result has
been adverse to her. In recent years there has been a tendency
to hand over any territory which
another nation may claim, on whatever slender grounds, without even this barren
formality; and France, Italy, Portugal and Belgium have all extended their
colonial boundaries by this simple method.
It was
by arbitration that England had lost Delagoa Bay to Portugal before the date of
the abortive treaty negotiations already mentioned, Marshal McMahon, to whom
the dispute had been referred, giving the usual decision in favour of the
weaker Power. It would be pleasant, but difficult, to think that, if Germany
should acquire the position in Africa that England now holds, she would be
prepared to settle all differences in this peaceful manner.
XIV
Angola
Portuguese West Africa - Angola -
has a relative temperate climate, and its upland interior is well watered,
healthy, and suitable for European settlement. Like Mozambique, it has the
misfortune to be adjacent to an ex-German colony, and to have been ear-marked
in Berlin for seizure at an appropriate time.
In
proportion to its potentialities, Angola may be the least developed of any
part of Africa. This is mainly due to maladministration in previous centuries,
and to lack of capital during recent years. Until about a century ago, its main
"industry" was the export of slaves to Brazil, and this trade did not
entirely cease until a much later date. Compulsory native labour within the
colony was not completely abolished until 1921.
Owing
to such long-continued abuses, the native population is only about three and a
quarter millions, although the colony has an area of 785,000 sq. miles, most of
which is fertile. Properly developed, it could sustain ten times its present
population, and still be a sparsely occupied land.
The
white population is only about 7,500, of which a third are Germans, and British
and South Africans combined are about equal in number. Four-fifths of the white
population is in Lobito, one of the finer ports of the West African coast.
The
exports of Angola, consisting mainly of coffee, maize, sugar, cotton, and other
such sub-tropical products, tend to increase in value, and its finances are
mildly prosperous.
Very
rich copper deposits have been located, but not yet worked.
Custom
duties are heavy, especially, upon goods shipped in foreign bottoms, the
Portuguese policy being to encourage its own mercantile navy by this system of
indirect subsidy. But the British mandated policy of holding the door wide open
to German competition in the neighbouring South-West Territory has enabled a
fleet of German liners to be maintained on the coast, and a maritime treaty
(July, 1936) between Portugal and Germany has modified the position in favour
of the latter country, although Britain had, and still holds, the larger share
of Angola's foreign trade.
The
colony is now far better administered than was the case ten years ago, and
requires nothing but present capital and a sense of future security to advance
it to the position of one of the most prosperous, as it is already one of the
healthiest, parts of South Africa.
Project
of Jewish Immigration
It is
particularly opportune at the present time, when the Jews in Germany, and in
other barbarous countries, are being so severely persecuted, to observe that a
project for large-scale Jewish immigration took shape in 1913, and was revived
in 1934, though without immediate result.
It is
doubtful whether there is a similar area, equally suitable for such a purpose,
and equally unpopulated, on any part of the earth's surface, and it would be
far more equitable to consider such an allocation than to surrender this
fertile territory to their German persecutors.
XV
Such are the Portuguese colonies.
They are already prosperous, and of enormous potentialities. Having been under
the flag of a relatively small country they have naturally attracted German
cupidity from the day when the newly-formed Empire looked round for anything
lying loose on the world's surface on which it might lay its hands. Their
protection was the Anglo-Portuguese treaties, apart from which they would
scarcely have remained peaceably in the possession of their present owners.
Should
Germany be able to acquire them now, by a direct and freely negotiated bargain,
it is improbable that any other nation would interfere, however ominous for the
future peace of Africa such a transaction might be held to be. It is therefore
of importance to understand the probable attitude of the Portuguese Government
to such a proposal.
That
there may be no dangerous ambiguity on this point, President Carmona recently
issued this statement:
Attitude
of Portugal
"Sometimes,
for purposes which to us are more than suspect, the Portuguese colonies are
referred to as subjects of barter. We consider them to be outside any and every
agreement of any kind.
"They
are part of us, and together with the Mother Country constitute a single
indivisible whole, which no will, whether of ourselves or of others, can
mutilate."
The
Portuguese Ambassador in London, Dr. Monteiro, at a dinner of the Royal African
Society (February 1, 1939), said that this statement "reflects with the
clarity of a mirror" the universal feeling of Portugal.
That
being so, Germany could obtain these colonies if at all, only by an act of
brigandage to which England must be a passive, or even an actively consenting
party. It would be an action far baser even than the surrender of our own
territories to the threat of violence, such as no British Government would be
likely to contemplate, and which would be repudiated with indignation by the
general conscience.
The
possibility of it becoming a question of practical politics has appeared to be
discounted by repeated more or less official declarations from Berlin that
nothing different was sought from the return of the actual colonies lost.
Nothing more was desired. Nothing different would be considered.
Instructions
to the German Colonial League
But
with the commencement of 1939 there have been indications that Germany has
gained sufficient self-confidence to open a wider mouth.
The
German Colonial League, of which General Ritter von Epp is president, has been
agitating on this subject for more than two years past, not only in Germany but
in the ex-German colonies, and very actively in this country. It has adopted
the tone of assuming that the lost colonies are de facto, and will soon
be de jure, parts of the Third Reich. It is actually organising a
"Colonial Exhibition" to be held in Dresden during June, 1939, by
which time it appears to hope, and may believe, that the colonial empire of
Germany will have gained more substance than it now has.
A
Bold Demand
It is
exceedingly unlikely that such a body would speak or act without the approval,
or indeed without the explicit instructions, of the German Government. It is
therefore of extreme significance that the officials of this League have
received instructions to cease agitating for the specific return of the former
colonies and to substitute a demand that all colonial possessions shall be
redistributed in proportions scaled to the populations of the home countries.
They
have been instructed to argue that this radical redistribution would be no more
than an act of basic justice, on the assumption that all colonies are exploited
for the material enrichment of the holding country, and that Germany is morally
entitled to a share in strict proportion to her population in Europe.
The
proposal to effect such an adjustment is so wildly impracticable, and any
initial plausibility which it may have is dependent upon so many fallacies of
logic and the ignoring of so many facts, that it would be absurd to treat it
seriously in itself. Yet it may be a fact of the utmost gravity that such a
contention should be set up.
XVI
German
New Guinea
A proposal to return any part of
New Guinea to Germany would raise different considerations from those which
prohibit disturbance of the African territories.
They
are considerations vital to the existence of the British Empire, and all which
that existence means to the world, and they have a special threat to Australia
which may make the minority in that island continent, who recently raised the
question of whether Australia would inevitably be involved in a British war
gave it a negative reply, wish they had said less.
Australia is the largest island in the world; the next largest is New Guinea,
which lies to the north, separated by no more than the eighty miles of the
Torres Strait.
Those
straits are studded with small islands, between which are narrow channels
through which passes the rich commerce of Australia and the Western world. The
military occupation of those islands would control the straits. They are now in
the possession of the Queensland Government. They are not yet seriously
fortified, though this position is not likely to continue.
The
Dutch were First
The
Dutch were the first to secure a foothold on the mainland of New Guinea. They
occupied its western end, which was all their concern. They did not want New
Guinea itself, so much as to block the way to discovery of spice islands
further east, which might compete with theirs. English enterprise swerved
south-ward, seeking land in a more temperate zone. In the end we came to New
Guinea from the opposite direction, and landed on its eastern coast. We had not
passed the Dutch barrier. We had come in at the back door, Dutch and British
alike found New Guinea an uninviting land. Most of it was - and still is -
covered by dense forests clothing the sides of steep gorges, narrow and deep,
often soaked with torrential rains, and oppressed by a steaming heat.
The
Interior
The
moist, dense, luxuriant forests contain few beasts, and these are of small
size, but they have a wonder of tropic flowers, and great butterflies, and
bright-plumaged birds. It is a land in which the flora of Malaya and that of
Australia meet in a profusion which neither parent can equal. It is inhabited
by numerous scattered tribes of very diverse races, but all primitive in habits
and low in intellect. There are cannibals and head-hunters there today, as
there were when Thomas Forrest landed from his ten-ton galley a century and a
half ago. The forests are very difficult to penetrate from their luxuriance,
their moist heat, the rivers that must be crossed, and their abrupt gorges
which must be continually descended and climbed while cutting blindly through
tropic growth. Much of the interior is still un-explored.
New
Guinea is nearly 1,500 miles in length, and averages about 500 miles in
breadth. When the Germans began to look round for lands where they could stake
a claim, there was Dutch settlement at the one end and British protection
vaguely extending over the other, with a wide space between, the owner-ship of
which had not been defined.
Queensland
Anxiety
Queensland had petitioned the Home Government more than once to proclaim a
definite protectorate of this ill-defined territory, dreading the ultimate
result if any part of it should be possessed by a foreign power other than
Holland, which she felt no reason to fear. At that time it might have been done
with an unchallenged right, the only necessity being to come to a friendly
understanding as to where Holland's boundary met our own.
But
our British Government would not move. During the latter part of the nineteenth
century the principal anxiety of the Foreign Office appears to have been that
they should not be considered greedy by other Powers. Foreign ambassadors in
London who wished to make colonial claims found a market in which it was easy
to deal.
Foreign
Office Policy
The
Victorian epoch is commonly represented as one in which England acted with an
arrogant sense of power. An examination of Foreign Office correspondence, and
of the treaties that were made, does not support this view. There was a firm
stand made occasionally, as at Fashoda, but generally any nation could have
anything for which it could make out even a flimsy claim, and, where Germany
was concerned, she might get it merely by mentioning her desire in a surly way,
and hinting that it would be sufficient to make her a better neighbour in
Europe - until she should open her mouth again.
When
Tennyson wrote:
"Pray
God our greatness do not fail Through craven fear of being great"
he saw the timidity - or perhaps
"mis-interpreted generosity" would be more exact - with which foreign
negotiations were conducted, with accurate eyes.
In
1883 the nervousness of the Queensland Government caused it to proclaim a
protectorate of the south-eastern shore of New Guinea off its own bat. But the
British Government actually repudiated this claim to a vacant coast, possession
of which was a vital necessity for Australian security; though it was persuaded
in the following year, with more reluctance than it usually showed when giving
something away, to proclaim a protectorate "from the 141st meridian
eastward as far as East Cape, with the adjacent islands far as Kosman
Island."
German
Landing
Perhaps we should say that they had given something away, in the usual
direction, before allowing themselves to make this declaration, for, almost
immediately afterwards, Germany, although not having a foothold on the island
or a valid claim of the remotest kind, announced on November 16, 1884, that the
north-east part of the island was her own property, sent a landing-party to
hoist the German flag, and established a trading station. It will be noticed
that this is the same year in which the claims to Tanganyika and South-West
Africa were made, with the support of the British Foreign Office. The year 1884
stands out as that in which these artificial "colonies" were created,
and from which the present trouble began, the British Government showing as
much anxiety to establish Germany as a neighbour to the overseas parts of the
Empire as though she were seeking a heritage for her own babe.
When
the Germans landed in 1884, there was not a single white man of any nationality
in the part of New Guinea which they had claimed. It was not a case of the flag
following trade or settlement, but it was to be one of very little trade
following the flag.
It was
simply a case of Germany wanting to say that large portions of the earth's
surface belonged to her, which the British Foreign Office, instead of sitting
on it with a decision which would have done much for the world's peace,
preferred to nurse like a sick child. It was a case of purchasing future
trouble with present ease which we may do well to ponder today.
Two
Hundred Islands
Germany did not only annex the mainland; she claimed, in the same arbitrary
manner, without pretexts of settlement or discovery, over two hundred islands,
including the Solomon and Admiralty Groups, which became generally known as the
Bismarck Archipelago.
The
area of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, as the Germans called their new mainland
possession, was about 70,000 sq. miles. Twenty-two years later - in 1906 - its
white population of every nationality, including Germans, was one hundred
and forty nine.
At the
conclusion of the war this territory (together with the ex-German islands south
of the equator, except German Samoa which is administered by New Zealand) passed
into Australia's control. Its non-indigenous population in 1937 had risen to
5,897, including:
British
. . . 3,329 . . . . . . . . . U.S.A. . . . . . 151
German .
. . 469 . . . . . . . . . Chinese . . . 1,525
Dutch . .
. . .155 . . . . . . . . . . Japanese . . . . 40
There was a known native
population of about half a million, but much of the interior is still
unexplored, and may contain tribes which the forests hide.
The
country is known to be rich in undeveloped mineral wealth, but mechanical
difficulties of transport, particularly of heavy machinery, retard its
exploitation.
Discovery
of Gold
Gold-mining beyond the frontiers of civilisation has been commenced during the
Australian occupation, the precious metal having been located far in the
inhospitable interior, and machinery which could hardly have been dragged
through forest and gorge and swamp has been carried sectionally through the
air, a fleet of planes now being in regular service between Australia and the
mines.
The
capital invested in this goldfield amounts to many millions. It is entirely
British Empire and American money. The gold obtained has already reached an
annual to of £2,000,000, and there is a probability that mining operations may
extend until the prosperity of the Australian goldfields has been exceeded.
Western
Samoa
Western Samoa, which is the name given to the ex-German Samoan Islands, is now
governed by New Zealand, with the liberality and in the disinterested spirit
which her mandate requires. The German occupation only dated from November,
1899, as the result (need it be said?) of an Anglo-German treaty by which Great
Britain renounced her own claims in favour of a greedier Power.
No
German who knows the facts will be ungrateful if the period of their occupation
be passed over without remark.
The
whole of the South Pacific Islands held by Australia and New Zealand are
utterly unfortified, that being one of the conditions of the League of Nations
mandates, which has been strictly observed. (Were we not all to be secure
beneath the League of Nations' extended wing?)
Japan
took the German Islands north of the equator, under the same conditions, and
has fortified some of them, without protest from our peace-loving government,
in no half-hearted manner.
XVII
Looking
Ahead
It will be well to ask ourselves,
before our politicians go further upon the perilous road of discussion with
Germany, what the effect of surrendering Kaiser Wilhelm's Land and the South
Pacific Islands would be upon our prestige and interests in the Far East, and
upon those millions of British blood who are divided from us by two oceans, but
for whom Britain is still the shield of their lasting peace.
We can
put aside the idea that it would be regarded as an act of altruistic justice
for nations of lower moralities to admire and to imitate as occasion comes.
Even
if that were true - which it would not be - it would not be believed.
It
would be accepted as a decisive sign that our empire will fall apart, and that
the process has begun; which is what Japan, among others, would like to think -
and perhaps does.
A
Japanese Opinion
Mr.
Shiratori, the new Japanese Ambassador to Italy, gave an interview to a
representative of the Danzig organ of Naziism, the Neueste Nachrichten
(October 27, 1938), in the course of which he said:
"Great Britain's predominance in the Far East has come to an end for ever.
A new chapter of Japanese history begins."
It is
a fact so evident that even Japanese discretion does not think it injudicious
to boast of it in blunt words to those who are unfriendly to us!
Well,
Japan may be wrong. While the lion lives, it is premature to divide his skin.
But, if it be error, it is one which such surrender to Germany would so
emphatically support that Japan would be very unlikely to unlearn it, if at
all, without much shedding of British blood.
And
suppose that we should lose a war in the Far East under the weakened conditions
in which it would be fought? Suppose that German or Japanese armies - or both -
should land from New Guinea or elsewhere in New Zealand or Australia, and
should prove too numerous or too strongly equipped to be driven out?
Even
then the advocates of this peculiarly new deal may argue that it would not be
very serious, because, under the revised rules of warfare as they are
understood by the totalitarian states, all occupied territories would be
evacuated in twenty years' time. . . Well, perhaps. We may give New Guinea, or
any other of our Far Eastern dependencies, to Germany, and tell Asia that it
has been done from pure kindness of heart, but she will not believe; for the
Asiatic may be an idealist - very many are - but he is not a fool.
Suggestions
for Future Peace
The
Japanese are a polite race, or, at least, at one time they were. New habits,
new manners. There have been signs of change during recent years. But they may
tell us that they can appreciate good humour as much as Germany. It will
promote further amity in the Far East if we surrender Hong Kong without
regrettable loss of life, which may be guaranteed providing only that we leave
its "installations" intact, according to Czechoslovakian precedent,
and as good feeling will naturally lead us to do.
And a
quick deal after that might even save a large part of Australia for a time, if
we should have the sense to withdraw from its northern half (for doing which a
far stronger moral plea could be urged than for the return to Germany of
colonies which are better administered in their present hands than they would
be likely to be by her). And after that the issue could be left to time in the
patient Oriental manner. It could be fought out between the fecund Japanese and
the comparatively barren Australian women, to its certain end. (Unless, of
course, the women of Japan should be converted to the queer gospel which Mr. H.
G. Wells urged upon them, so earnestly and vainly, twelve years ago, or those
of Australia should revert to a better faith.)
Singapore might remain ours for a time, as being hard to take, and having
become no more than the gate of a plundered store. But it would have become an
expensive luxury to maintain, and the Japanese might agree to buy it from us at
a good price, as they would be well able to do.
The
liquidation of the British Empire would have begun, and a twilight of freedom
would be falling upon the world.
XVIII
Feeling
In Australia
It is not wonderful that Australia
feels as strongly antagonistic to the return of any part of New Guinea to
Germany as does the Cape Union Government concerning Tanganyika or the
South-West Territory. She sees a threat to her own security which she would
have no power to prevent. It is easy for her to say she will not agree, while
she is buying airplanes in dozens, and disputing as to whether her slowly
increasing population can raise a militia of 70,000 men for the defence of her
own shores. But if England should tell Germany it is hers to take, what could
Australia do?
Some
of its people, descendants of British born settlers, have spoken publicly, even
during the past year, as though Australia were independent of the rest of our
Commonwealth, and might decide to stand back if England should be involved in a
major war. But now, having come to realise how entirely dependent they are upon
the strength of the British shield, and having been roused to wakefulness at a
late hour, they are discussing how far New Guinea could be defended from the
air, using Port Darwin as a base. As to which the answer must be that it must
depend upon how seriously it should be attacked. Without England's, its defence
could be no more than a gallant but vain attempt.
Do
they envisage a Commonwealth in which England will always be ready to protect
her weaker children, but they will be free to desert her at an hour of need? Or
a day when they will be stronger than she, and can stand securely apart? It may
well be that such a day will come, but, if so, it is far ahead.
Unity
of the British Commonwealth
Today,
except for vote-catching politicians, the question does not exist, Let the
United States stand aside if she will (which some of us do not believe) when
the battle of freedom joins. But the British Empire, by instinct, by loyalty,
by common ideals and common speech, no less than by self-interest, is
indivisibly one; and it is a fact for her foes to fear.
XIX
What
Mandates Are
Having surveyed the mandated
territories, it may be convenient to turn at once to consider what mandates
are, and how far, if at all, they affect our own rights of possession, and
Germany's claims.
The
matter is of the more interest - it is scarcely of any importance, as will
appear - because the Germans in South-West Africa, obviously acting on
instructions from Berlin, have resisted the policy of denouncing the mandate
for that territory, and have appealed to the Versailles treaty, as Germany,
though vigorously repudiating it at other times, is always ready to do in
support of her own aims.
It is
a treaty the obligations of which she no longer recognises, but they are to
remain binding on us.
The
first obstacle to clear thinking on this matter to most English people is one
of definition. Very few have an even vaguely accurate idea of what a mandate
is, because, though it specifies a form of contract recognised not only by the
ancient Roman law but by most modern European legal systems derived therefrom,
it has no place in our English code.
There
is insufficient reason to turn aside here in pursuit of legal subtleties of no
final importance to the issue with which we deal. We go far enough if we observe
that the basic principle of this form of contract is that the party undertaking
the mandate is responsible to the mandator on the sole consideration that he
(the mandator) will indemnify the mandatory against loss or risk in the
execution of the responsibility he has undertaken, the only exception being
that the mandator has no such responsibility when the conditions of the mandate
are entirely for the benefit of the mandatary. Let us therefore see exactly
what these mandates are, and how far this consideration is due.
They
were issued to the three mandatory Powers, England, France, and Japan, by the
League of Nations, and gave them, in radical fact, nothing at all, for they
dealt with territories which had been previously conquered by, and had actually
been in possession of, these Powers for some years at the time when the
mandates were drawn up.
Various
Forms of Mandates
There
are three kinds.
Mandates A referred to Palestine and Syria, and contemplated the eventual
independence of these countries. We have no present concern with these beyond
remarking that, if the German colonies are "wrongfully" withheld from
Germany, these are withheld from Turkey with no better right.
Mandates
B applied to:
Tanganyika
Togoland
The
Cameroons
They required that these
territories should be administered under conditions which would "guarantee
freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the maintenance of public
order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms
traffic, and the liquor traffic, the prevention of the establishment of
military or naval bases or fortifications, and of military training of the
natives for other than police purposes and the defence of their own
territories, and secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other
members of the League."
Mandates
C applied to:
German New Guinea;
The
Pacific Islands now held by Australia, New Zealand and Japan;
Nauru, a
small phosphate-producing island held by Great Britain;
South-West
Africa.
These
were defined as territories which, owing to sparseness of population, small
size, remoteness from centres of civilisation, or geographical contiguity, can
best be administered under the laws of the mandatary as integral portions of its
territory, subject to the safeguards already enumerated in the interests of the
indigenous populations."
It
will be seen that none of these conditions was of any possible benefit to the
mandatory Powers. They voluntarily accepted restrictive obligations upon
territories captured from Germany in a war in which they had incurred enormous
losses, which were already in their possession, in the altruistic spirit in
which the League of Nations was formed; and these conditions Great Britain and
the Dominions concerned have scrupulously observed - have, indeed, more than
observed, against their direct interests, for the obligations to allow freedom
of trade only applied to League members, and they have been permitted to
Germany and Japan, to the grave detriment of Empire commerce, after they have
left the league,
Responsibility
of the League
But as
it is apparent that the conditions of the mandates were entirely in the
interests of the inhabitants of the territories, and of League members other than
the mandataries, it follows that the mandator - that is, the League of Nations
- is legally committed to protect the holders of these mandates from all risks
arising therefrom, or, in the absence of such protection, that the mandates are
legally void. For how (for instance) can a mandatary be seriously required to
hold its territory unfortified by stipulation of the mandator, unless that
mandator be prepared and adequate to undertake its defence? Yet Great Britain,
in spite of the League's consistent refusal to honour such obligations, and its
substantial collapse, has scrupulously observed this condition, and, even now,
Australia is planning the defence of New Guinea only from points outside the
mandated territory.
But
would the League of Nations indemnify us from any German attack? Would its
component nations fight on our behalf? Would they finance any operation which
the upholding of these mandates might involve? Are they doing that with
Palestine now?
The
frailty of this obligation to the League of Nations could be pursued to final
absurdity down many paths, but they would be waste of words.
Neither by any law, nor any principle of moral equity, does obligation exist.
For the League of Nations gave nothing to us. We voluntarily agreed to limit,
and do limit, our conquest-rights, against guarantees which have become
valueless, the contracting parties (who, in the event, would not have fulfilled
them) having faded away.
It is
necessary to make this clear, because there is a widespread felling that we are
merely custodians of these mandated territories; that they have never been more
than loosely attached to the British Empire; and that we may lightly resign that
which has never been held in our own right.
It
would be a two-edged argument, for that which is not ours to hold could not be
ours to give. But, be that as it may, it has no substance. It is enough to
observe that it would be of no benefit to Germany if it had.
A
German Error?
The
idea that Germany appears to encourage, and which, if it were true, would
explain her instructions to the Germans in South-West Africa to resist any
alteration in the status of that territory by which its mandate would be
ignored, is that by some process, direct or indirect, she had herself made over
her colonies to the League. But that is not the fact, and even if she could
logically invoke treaties in her own interest which she repudiates on other
issues, it would not help her at all.
By the
Treaty of Versailles (Art. 119) Germany resigned all claims on these colonies
unconditionally in favour of "the principal allied and associated
Powers," and from that moment their final destiny was a matter for the
allies to settle among themselves, as they proceeded to do. The legal questions
which might be raised as between these Powers and the League, if the League
were a body continuing to function and equal to discharging its obligations,
which it is not, would be extremely complex, if not insoluble by anything
but a surgical process. But they would certainly be of no assistance to
Germany, nor, as she is not a member of the League by her own will, do they
concern her in any way.
Mr.
Eden's View
Even
Mr. Eden, who so long and ably fought the impossible Geneva battle, and who
should be able to explain these matters if any can - the League of Nations
being his attractive, anaemic pet - confessed both himself and the British
Government to be baffled by the complexities of the juridical problem when he
said in the House of Commons (July 27, 1936):
"The question of any transfer of mandated territories would inevitably
raise grave difficulties, moral, political, and legal, to which His Majesty's
Government must frankly say that they have been unable to find any
solution"
Finally,
the United States
As a
final comic-opera complexity, there are treaties with the United States so
worded that England could legitimately contend that she would have no right to
vary the terms of the mandates (and therefore no right to transfer the mandated
territories to Germany or any other country) without the consent of that
Government.
So, if
we pursue the legal absurdity of the position to its final lair, we can
envisage the possibility of England and the League of Nations professing their
willingness to surrender these colonies to German importunity, and only
prevented by the refusal of the United States to sanction the transfer, which,
in view of their possible menace to South America, as well as on humanitarian
grounds, would be a reasonable attitude for her to adopt. Whereupon the natural
sequel would be for Germany and the United States to go to war to settle the
issue, while the rest of the world would look on.
XX
The
Plea of Justice
If we can imagine a Court of
International Justice, having real and recognised authority, and that Germany
should bring a suit before it for the return of these territories, we can see
that England, apart from the right of conquest (which surely neither Germany
nor her Italian partner, busily trying to gnaw some meat from his Abyssinian
bone, would soberly deny), could raise almost endless points of international
law by which the plaintiff would be non-suited, or difficulties of procedure
which would be hard or hopeless to overcome.
For
the plain fact is that, while there might be many points to be cleared up by
the "Allied and Associated Powers" among themselves, Germany is the
one country which could establish no locus standi at all.
She
did not appeal to justice when she invaded Belgium in 1914. She appealed to
arms.
The
verdict went against her in the court of her own choice, and she paid a far
milder penalty than she would have exacted from beaten foes.
Not
Justice but Arms
She
will not appeal to justice now, which would deride her claim. She will appeal
to arms once more; as she has just done over Czechoslovakia. There has been no
restraint of justice in the violation of the boundaries of that ancient
country.
Because it consented, and we who took and then abandoned its part consented, to
be defeated without a battle, its conquest was no less a military operation.
There
may have been wisdom in that surrender. Or there may not. But there was no
honour. And the tribunal was one at which justice did not preside. "We
avoided war by threatening it," Dr. Goebbels declared, in a burst of
candour, at Reichenburg (November 20, 1938).
Its
danger for the world's peace - and for the existence of Naziism - is that the
pitcher which goes often to the well will be broken at last. For it will surely
be the destruction of Germany if her bluff be called before she has reached far
more than her present strength. And if she thinks she will have Mussolini's
loyal help in her hour of need - well, she may; or she may have something
further to learn!
Losing
Czechoslovakia, we lost some honour, and a loyal friend. It is natural that we
should be invited to lose more.
To
claims so advanced there can be only one possible reply, which even our present
Government could be trusted to make; but during recent years Germany, who, when
she does not bluster is always disposed to whine, has advanced a plea on
grounds other than those either of peace or of international law; and though it
is one which could have been more powerfully urged had she remained a member of
the League of Nations, continuing as unarmed as England would also have been,
and loyal to those ideals which the League has professed and partially obeyed,
it is still one which should not be ignored.
A
More Plausible Plea
She
claims that her position as a European power without colonies places her at a
disadvantage economically, and particularly so in obtaining supplies of raw
materials which her industries need, and she contends that she cannot be
expected to be a peaceful and friendly neighbour while this injustice persists.
This
argument has impressed many who, without giving the problem any close
examination, have been disposed, from generous love both of peace and of fair
play, to blame the harshness of a treaty they have not read, and to say:
"Why not give some of them back?" as though it were as simple as
cutting a slice of cake.
It is
important therefore to consider whether; this be a genuine grievance. Is
Germany short of raw materials? If so, why? And how far, if at all, is that
position (if it be a fact in itself) due to the alienation of German colonies
twenty years ago? It would require much space, and a wide diversion from our immediate
subject, to deal with these questions comprehensively, for which fortunately
there is no occasion, because the most cursory examination of the problem will
show that their return could make no material difference to her facilities for
obtaining these supplies, and none at all except to the direct detriment of
the present prosperity of those unfortunate lands.
Germany
Has Free Access Now
The
position would be slightly - but only slightly - different had tariff barriers
been set up, to the disadvantage of German trade. But that has not been done. She
trades in those territories as freely as though they were hers, both to buy and
sell.
Legal
possession could be of no economic benefit except so far as she should erect
tariff barriers which do not now exist, or tax those lands for her own benefit,
which would be the opposite of our own procedure.
Indeed, the argument is based on the assumption that a colony is to be
controlled, not for its own good, but for that of the country to which it is
unfortunate enough to belong.
It is
not wonderful that those who dwell in these jeopardised lands do not appreciate
the idea, nor that trade has languished, and all projects of development become
suspended, at the mere suspicion that England may be planning to cast them off.
Raw
Materials
In
actual fact, Germany is not, need not be, and has not been, short of raw
materials. The disciplined industry of her people has secured for themselves an
export trade which gives them ample of the foreign exchange which the financing
of such purchases requires, and this sufficiency has been augmented by an
extreme frugality of honour in dealing with their external debts.
The
shortages which they have experienced have been the direct result of buying
excessive quantities of such raw materials as are required for the manufacture
of munitions of war.
If we
are foolish enough to assist them further in that direction, while they
continue to obey their present truculent rulers, the man who warmed a snake in
his bosom might reasonably decline our society, as that of people whose mental
balance is more upset than his own.
But if
Germany has any legitimate grievances of this kind, if tariff barriers,
or difficulties of exchange, retard her or any other European country from
obtaining requirements in needed quantities, or at equitable prices, then it
may well be a part of Mr. Chamberlain's appeasement programme to enquire what
they may be, and to organise international action for their prompt removal.
And,
if so, let it be fairly done. Is Germany the only country to be appeased? It
may be found that there are other quieter, smaller, countries in Europe which
have juster cause of complaint.
And
let the method of relief be less crude than that of giving the territories
where such materials are produced to Nazi tyranny and exploitation, which would
be to mock justice and freedom, and to produce a remedy far worse than the
disease which it would so crudely cure. . .
The
Argument of Bad Faith
There
is one other argument sometimes advanced on the German side which hardly
deserves mention, and certainly no extended refutation. It is a suggestion,
usually implied rather than expressed, that Germany was led to surrender the
colonies under false promises and representations that were not kept.
This
is vitally false. It is also imprudent, because they were already in British
and French hands when the war ceased; and it is historic fact - it is Hitler's own
admission - that Germany was not a position to bargain. Her armies were in
confused retreat, with their "home front" equally and irretrievably
broken.
The
Versailles treaty was signed - it again Hitler's own contention - under duress;
from which he goes on to conclude that its provisions are not binding upon
Germany. It is a difficult and dangerous theory, because its logical conclusion
is that it is impossible to make any binding treaty with a defeated foe. Such a
treaty binds the victor, but not vanquished!
But if
the treaty were dictated, the element of bargaining did not arise; and, be that
as it may, it will be useless to search the Versailles treaty for any bargains
about these colonies which have not been kept, for they are not there.
Continuing
Unrest
The
German Government is, however, right in its contention that so long as this
question of returning colonies to her remains open, there will be no rest in
Europe. To which it may be added that, if their demands should be granted,
there will be unrest over a much wider area.
Rest
will only be possible, if at all, when Germany realises that she is asking for
something she will not get.
It
becomes important, therefore, to examine any real grievances that she may have,
either regarding raw materials, exchange currency, or emigration, and to remove
them thoroughly.
If
there be no such grievance, it is almost equally important to demonstrate that
fact to all impartial minds.
It is
a subject on which, if the allegation be seriously urged, an international
conference might reasonably be held.
XXI
The Treaty of Versailles, and the
League of Nations which was its child by President Wilson, were intended to
inaugurate an era of peace and international justice on earth, which they did
do.
Responsibility
for Today
But,
beyond any of the contracting ties on either side, England can plead at the bar
of history that the responsibility was not hers, and she is guiltless, to the
same extent, of responsibility for the present shadow that lies over Europe,
unless it be blame to her that she did interfere when Germany commenced to
re-arm on a scale which would be an evident threat to the world's peace if it
were allowed. There was a time when the mere threat of blockade would have been
enough. But it has gone now.
She
preferred - and there was more to be said for that course in advance of the
event than there is now - to continue the example of disarmament, and the
policy of conciliation, in a world which became less and less responsive to
pacific influences.
The
Failure of the League
The
League of Nations had been rejected by the United States, refused by Germany,
condemned by Italy and Japan, and was being used by France for meaner ends than
it had been intended to serve, while England stood by it still, with an
idealism only faintly reflected in the policies of smaller nations, which had
thought less of saving the world than of gaining protection for themselves
under diminishing shadow.
British
Disarmament
England remained unarmed in an arming world, to her own peril, and her reward
was nothing better than the insult of Italy, the destruction of Abyssinia, and
the surrender of Munich; but it was an error of magnanimity, and she may use
the sword at last in a firmer hand because she had shown that she was ready to
lay it down.
The
ghost of the League still walks, but from the moment when its members declined
to go to the aid of Manchuria - when she was first worried by Japan - was
utterly and finally wrecked.
It has
bleated since as the wolves have pulled three of its members - Abyssinia,
China, and Czechoslovakia - out of the fold, wondering which will be next on
the butchers' list. But when did bleating save the life of a single sheep?
America
Killed the League
The
League was, in fact, impotent from that historic moment - supremely important
in the history of our civilisation - when the senate of the United States
repudiated the pledge which President Wilson had given on his country's behalf.
In the
imperfect treaty of Versailles - so much and so ignorantly abused - there was
the germ of a great hope for the world.
But
the growth of that seed depended upon its cultivation by the United States and
the British Empire - the only true friends among the Great Powers that it ever
had - and which the United States proved itself too provincial to take that
place in the world's Councils which is its right - when it became clear that it
was "not great enough for its own destiny" - the League of Nations
was no more than a broken dream.
We may
hope that it will be dreamed again to the end which its founders sought. But a
broken dream is difficult to resume.
Rectitude
of the American Senate
The
American Senate acted within its constitutional rights, and President Wilson
had exceeded his; but it was no less that the course which was chosen left the
honour of a great nation indelibly stained; and it was one of those blunders
which are proverbially worse than crimes.
Without President Wilson's impotent nobility Europe might have felt its
hesitant way forward to something better than we now face. Or, with the
whole-hearted co-operation of the great democracy of the New World, we might
have come to a wide peace, in which event the Washington Government would not
be looking both West and East at horizons of rising storm, and uneasily arming
now.
These
may sound to be hard words, but they are true; and they are written one who
knows the United States, and loves that country nearly as well as his own land.
America
Collects Debts
Blind
to a future, which the discord of its President and Senate had done so much to
shape, America settled down to collect debts!
She
would not listen to the advice of England - the other great creditor nation -
that the cancellation of those monstrous edifices of liability would be the
best healing treatment they could give the world, and from which they would not
the last to benefit. Stubbornly, she thrust the world and herself forward to
financial chaos, her statesmen driven from below, and half-unconscious of what
they did.
She
refused goods. She must have gold. She had 1929.
Her
government now sees with far clearer eyes. But are her people wiser today?
XXII
A
German Plea
In its issue of October 20, 1938,
the Berliner Tageblatt published an article entitled: "The White
Man's Destiny," by Dr. von Ungern-Sternberg. Its theme is Germany's large
and increasing population, and it argues that these numbers give a legitimate
claim to the possession of overseas territory.
"Germany's population," he says, "including the regions recently
acquired, amounts to nearly 80,000,000." He also stresses its (relatively)
high birth-rate, and he claims that these circumstances render it
"intolerable" that such a nation should be denied "possibilities
of colonial expansion," and expresses the opinion that no French or English
politician who is capable of clear thinking will question this.
There
is a sense in which most people may agree with his argument. If a virile nation
have a high birth-rate it will require more space for its sons than that with
which a previous generation may have been content, and for other nations - and
particularly those of wide empty spaces and inferior fecundity - to deny them
this would be asking for the trouble that they would be certain to have.
But
when Dr. Ungern-Sternberg descends to detail, his conception is of a more
disputable particularity.
German
Conceptions of Colonies
"Without," he says, "a large number of settlers,
pioneers, and European soldiers, no colonial power can hold her overseas
possessions for a prolonged period." (Italics not his.)
It is
certainly true that any country, overseas or not, requires inhabitants, and -
incidentally - it is in that particular that Germany's previous efforts at
colonisation were only moderately successful, of which the New Guinea figures,
already given, are an emphatic proof. But that a large number of European
soldiers are not needed for a colony which is equitably governed, even though
it may have a large aboriginal population, is shown from figures also given previously
regarding Tanganyika. It may be doubted whether, at the moment that this is
written, there are more than five or six score white soldiers or police in the
whole of that wide and contented territory.
Reasonable
Condition
The
surplus population of Germany would - on one reasonable condition - be welcomed
in many lands. There is room for them in the United States, in Australia, in
South Africa, in several South American republics; and a score of other
partially developed countries either do, or should, hold their doors wide open
for settlers of good character, which most Germans are.
But
they may ask - it is a most reasonable request - that those who come shall not
enter in a spirit of aggressive nationalism, but shall be prepared to show some
moderate measure of loyalty their adopted land.
Even
Dr. Ungern-Sternberg might recognise, if he should reflect upon it, that those,
of whatever ancestral blood, who now regard Africa as their home, might not
welcome the idea of a "large number of. . . European soldiers" being
introduced to that continent, and might wonder what their activities were
expected to be.
Germany would doubtless reply that she is not satisfied for her surplus
population to migrate to the United States or South America, under their
present governments. She prefers that they should go to territories which she
can control from Berlin and which she can keep exclusively to herself.
But,
if this were in any way possible to arrange without injustice to others, would
it be desirable, either for herself or the world's peace?
It is
true that such a conception of colonial possessions was once prevalent in
Europe; but England, for the last half-century as been leading the way to cast
it off, and it is rightly demoded now.
Even
in a previous century, when British settlers in what is now the United States
quarrelled with the Home Government, there was a large proportion of English
people whose sympathies were with those who rebelled, and their influence did
much to affect the result of, and to shorten, that fratricidal conflict.
But,
what was clear to them then, Germany has not learned today. Her conception of a
colony as something to be governed and exploited for her own gain, and to be a
point of military advantage to vex her foes, is an evil dream from which the
rest of Europe is entirely or half awake.
When
it became known in England two years ago that the Nazi Government, while
contemning Christianity as a religion inadequate to the new ethical standards
which it would teach, was disposed to look tolerantly upon the revival of the
worship of Thor, the aspect of comedy which it certainly had may have obscured
its more serious meaning. The Nazi gospel will lead us back, if it can, to the
twilight of civilisation, and it looked round, with a natural instinct, for an
appropriate god.
XXIII
Equal
Justice for All?
If it be a sound argument that
because 80,000 of Germans have a fairly high birth-rate some large overseas
territories should be given to them for exclusive colonisation, then it appears
to be a sound corollary that a smaller European nation, having a similar
population problem, should also have an exclusive territory, measured to its
own scale.
A
group of the various nationalities of Eastern Europe, including Poland, might
aggregate a claim equal to anything which Germany could advance, and with an
equal argument of having no colonies of their own.
Let us
suppose that Mr. Chamberlain's anxiety for the appeasement of Europe were to be
extended to them, and that there were a plan for the irrigation of the Sahara
desert - very far from an impossibility - and that it were proposed to apply it
to the use of these nations for the opportunities of expansion which they
require.
There
would be alternative methods of allocation to be considered. The whole area
might be thrown open equally to all, or it might be divided into the
appropriate number of smaller restricted territories, to each of which one
nation would send its surplus population to continue the ancestral culture in
its exclusive domain.
The
latter plan would have much immediate sentimental support, but who, looking
impartially on, could call it the better way?
In the
name of liberty it would have imposed numberless and needless restrictions. It
would reduce the area of free choice within which a man might settle according
to his own proclivities, and the occupation he might be most fitted to pursue.
With every possible effort to arrive at equitable division, it would be
inevitable that some of new settlements should be inferior to others in climate
or fertility, some further from trading facilities of port or river.
And
what would the position be likely to be in a century's time? Where there might
have been growth of a strong, contented, prosperous nation, which each
contributory element would have enriched, there would most probably be a group
of small, jealous, divided states, with a dark record of quarrels and wars,
contained within barbed-wire frontiers, and with customs barriers reducing
their prosperity by restricting trade. Or perhaps their barriers would have
been cleared away, and their differences forgotten, after they had passed
through the bitter ordeal of a decisively conquering war.
Example
of Canada
The
English of Vancouver and the French of Quebec are of different races and
creeds, and even in language they are apart; but they dwell in a political
amity, not of common bondage but common freedom.
It is
a conception which has not yet penetrated to the German mind, and which cannot
do so while Naziism remains its political creed and there is no freedom of
discussion throughout the land.
XXIV
The contention that because Germans
have a growing population they can reasonably demand that the colonies of other
nations shall be transferred to their flag can be shown to be fallacious on
many grounds, but it is particularly vulnerable to one argument which their own
conduct supplies.
Expulsion
of Jews from Germany
They
have been so pitilessly active in their persecutions and expulsions of their
fellow-citizens of Jewish blood that they must, by that means, be effecting a
reduction in population sufficient to counter-balance their natural increase
for a good many years to come, so that they have themselves removed one of the
main arguments on which they rely, while giving a convincing demonstration of
their unfitness to govern any people of alien blood.
They
have also made it a matter of elementary justice that, if any part of the
earth's surface be for gift or sale, it should be put at the disposal of these
pathetic exiles rather than at that of those who, by their treatment of them,
have demonstrated their unfitness to exercise authority, even in their own
land, and how great a crime it would be to aliens, of whatever colour, under
their oppressive power.
XXV
Inevitable
End
The question of the growth of
populations, both of the white nations relatively to each other, and to darker
races, is, of course, that which will finally determine the proportions of the
earth's surface which they will continue to occupy, and the constantly
improving means of transit must materially hasten the process of this
distribution, which the post-war tyranny of the passport system will be
inadequate to resist, until there be a complete conquest of the earth's
surface, at present so partially tamed to the use of man. Unless, which both by
precedent and present indications may be regarded as the more probable sequel,
our civilisation shall relapse to barbarism, and our descendants recommence the
climbing of a ladder the top of which mankind is not destined to reach.
Apart
from that possibility, those who now occupy the fairest and most temperate
portions of the earth's surface cannot expect to be left in peaceful occupation
unless they either throw their lands open to other races, or populate them with
children of their own blood.
Nature
abhors a vacuum; and not all the scientists who were ever born could make the
course of existence easy for those who defy so fundamental a law.
Example
of Tunisia
Nowhere is the consequence of birth-prevention, as it must affect nationality
at last, more simply and convincingly illustrated than in Tunisia, where the
French rule a land in which they are outnumbered by men and women of Italian
blood.
Many
of the French settlers who should be there today were not born, and the
future, now that a neighbouring territory is being systematically colonised by
Italian peasants, is sombre for France.
She
may see now - but even now it may be too late - that a nation's ultimate
strength is not in Maginot lines, or even in thousands of bombing planes - we
may become in time sufficiently civilised to abolish them - but in the
abundance of its own youth.*
* This
was written before the present Italian agitation for the transfer of the
protectorate of Tunis to its own authority had begun. See Final Chapter.
According to the March, 1936, census there are some 108,000 French and 94,000
Italians inn Tunisia - about 15% of a total population of 2,600,000 - the
Moslems being about 85%. In 1881 there were roughly 12,000 Italians in Tunisia,
while the French were only a few hundreds. In the Great War 35,000 natives gave
their lives for France.
*
* *
Effects
of Birth Restriction
It has
been one of the facile arguments of the birth-restrictionists that women cannot
be expected to produce children to become "cannon-fodder" for the
next war. It is not, on any ground, a plea which will endure ethical or
practical examination, and it can only come from the lips of those who are
foolish or insincere; but, beyond that, it is fallacious, even in its own
assumptions. It is a simple conclusion that those who are few are the more
likely to perish, and that the nation which restricts the lives of its sons may
thereby consign to death or ignominy those whom it is frugal to have.
It
seems, indeed, a proposition too obvious for discussion or disbelief, but the
white races are preferring to learn it in the school of experience, where the
tuition is sound, and the fees are correspondingly high.
A
Cause of German Confidence
The
German journalists who prepared the minds of their fellow-countrymen for the
war of 1914 stressed the point that the French nation had ceased to increase,
as the Germans of that period did. They argued therefrom that the French were a
decadent people, fit only to be overcome by those of more virile stock. This
belief was a proximate cause of that war. It gave confidence to those who
ordered the German mobilisation. And, but for the intervention of England, the
anticipated overthrow France, with whatever consequences, would certainly have
occurred.
It may
not be an argument of any present logical force - and could only become so in
the event of men of German race being unreasonably excluded from other parts of
the earth's surface, which is unlikely to occur so long as they are content to
become good citizens of their adopted lands - but it holds a warning which it
would be well for ourselves to heed, whether we go forward to the peace we hope
or the war we have more cause to expect. . .
American
Illustration
Five
years ago the writer stood on a high ridge of the great mountain range that
looks eastward over the Californian desert. A dealer in "real
estate," in the American idiom, was beside him.
Far
below, the desert could be seen for hundreds of miles in the clear air of those
regions, brown and level and bare, with an occasional green spot where a well
had been sunk and a fruit ranch flourished.
This
conversation passed:
"I suppose if sufficient boring were done, the whole desert might become
fertile?"
"Yes. If you go deep enough there's no lack of water there."
"It seems a pity it isn't done."
"But while the population of California doesn't increase?"
There
was no answer to that.
XXVI
Self-determination
There is, as an abstract question,
much to be said for the principle of self-determination. It was one of the more
altruistic aims - most imperfectly realised - of the Trianon Treaty, and is an
argument in continual use in Germany, though it is conveniently ignored
whenever its application would conflict with the real aims of the Nazi
Government. The Alps (for the moment) are a barrier set by God, though the
Bohemian mountains proved to be of an inferior sanctity.
It is
not an argument of any avail to them on our present issue, unless appeal be
absurdly made to the ghostly votes of those who were in the German colonies
twenty years ago, to the ignoring of those who are alive in them today; and
even then it would be necessary that the voices of the native populations
should not be heard.
But we
have already observed that the multiplication of these ethnological boundaries,
however well intended, may have very dubious effects upon individual liberties,
and be directly disastrous to the cause of peace.
It
rallies and solidifies contentious entities, and when they quarrel it may
substitute bullet and bomb for the polling-booth contests by which their
differences might otherwise be resolved with no less, if no more, probability
of justice resulting.
To
realise this, it may be enough to consider what the probable consequences would
have been had Germany won the last war, and insisted upon the political
separation of the various nationalities that our island contains.
Trying
it on Ourselves?
Would
it have been of any practical advantage to the Highland Gaels that they should
have been given the separate government of their barren moors, and the separate
management of their own limited finances? Would the Lowland Scots have
appreciated the fact that they could hold no office of state in what had become
a foreign land?
Would
the tariff barriers which must have led to the policing of the Scottish
borders, and the long frontier of Wales, have advanced good feeling or fostered
trade? Would not the definition of the Welsh boundary, in particular, have led
to questions of insoluble difficulty? To which country would the county of
Monmouth justly belong?
There
would have been twenty years of dispute, recrimination, and difficult
adjustments, which we may think would have been settled without actual
violence, but political deterioration would have been inevitable, and it is
hard to think that any advance would have resulted in civil liberties, or
standards of social life.
Federation
the Better Way
The
need of Europe is for federation rather than accentuation of the many
differences of race, religion, and language which are its ancestral curse; and
it would be an evil service to humanity to transport these racial antipathies
to be fresh causes of war at future times in far-distant lands.
Surely
whatever may be said (which is much) for keeping these old cultures intact in
their native lands, and their stocks pure, it is in every way better that they
should blend when they go abroad, to form nations of the new vigour that such
interbreeding gives, with possibilities of wider sympathies in the succeeding
generations, and more general peace.
XXVII
Friendship
of the German People
It is a common argument among
those whose well-founded hatred of war operates to the detriment of their
logical faculty that the German people are individually friendly to ourselves,
and that the thought of conflict is no more antipathetic to us than it is to
them; and they conclude from this alleged fact that we have only to meet them
in a spirit of conciliation for the dove of peace to appear from a cloudless
sky.
Taking
the alleged fact first, we may, with some qualifications, agree. Few can have
travelled in Germany during recent years without meeting pleasant evidences of
a desire for peace between our peoples, and, in some instances, an active
desire to detach our sympathies from France to herself. It is true also that a
very large proportion of the German people do not desire another war, including
an enormous majority of those who are old enough to have had bitter experiences
in the last.
German
and Italian Antipathies
It is
also, and in the end may prove to be importantly, true that the Italian and
German peoples are not natural allies. The Germans are hated in Italy, and in
Germany the Italians are frankly despised.
But
the first of these observations must be qualified by the fact that the male
youth of Germany has been reared in an atmosphere of hate, and trained to
brutality, the effects of which are seen in the savage mobbing of Jewish women
and men, which, even if these unhappy people were actual criminals, would be a
disgrace to any civilised land.
So far
as it be true that German people are averse from war, or friendly to us, it
increases the tragedy of the position, but how far does it otherwise alter it
in any practical manner?
We may
suppose - or we might despair of humanity - that there were many Germans who
disapproved of the Nazi assassinations of hundreds of patriotic Austrians -
"suicides" as Nazi humour described them - but was that of any avail
to those who fell to the Nazi bullets?
The
Wisdom of Facing facts
It is
soundly argued that we should neither attempt to impose our own ideologies upon
foreign states, nor resent the fact that theirs are of a different pattern. But
when a state is guided absolutely by one man, or one group, then, so long as
its citizens submit to that control, we must ignore them, for they have become
negligible by their own choice, and consider only the characters and intentions
of those wielding so vast a power.
It was
that fact which rendered the Franco-Russian treaty so valueless in itself from
the day it was signed, and so repugnant to millions of the friends of France.
We
have no quarrel with Russia, and certainly none with its people, whether we
consider their condition to be an occasion for envy or pity. We have no wish to
interfere with their social experiments. But we must observe the actions of the
men by whom they are entirely controlled, and whose guidance they would follow
into any war in which those leaders might decide to engage.
A
Worthless Treaty
No one
who is aware of the character of the present Government of Russia, as revealed
by its public actions, can sanely suppose that, if war broke out in Europe
tomorrow, its attitude would be controlled by anything but its own immediate
interests, or that it would be influenced in the slightest degree, one way or
other, by the fact that it had entered into a treaty with Paris some years
earlier.
It is
that fact which made the treaty worthless, and worse than that, because
alliance with the present Government of Russia, however indirect, is
distasteful to millions of British people - both in Great Britain and the
Dominions - not on ideological but on purely ethical grounds. The political
theories which these men profess may be of the wisdom of Solomon, but they have
a habit of murder which we dislike.
The
Question of Confidence
And
when we are asked not to make a critical position more difficult by doubting
the sincerity of any declaration which Herr Hitler may make, we may appreciate
the spirit of the request, and still find that the difficulty is not removed.
We may be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but what doubt is there
with which to deal?
It is
no question of ideologies. It is the cold fact that Hitler's word has been
proved worthless time after time before.
Even
to mention this is considered injudicious by those who are already prepared to
have our freedom of speech and pen curtailed to the Berlin mode.
One of
the Kentucky Minstrels argues that though he may be a liar he still may be
sensitive about being so described, and it is possible that the Leader of the
incomparable Nordic race may have an equally thin skin.
But
the fact is beyond dispute; and it would be at our extreme peril that we should
decline to recognise it. His public lying has been emphatic and circumstantial.
It has been his chosen road to his political goals.
He
made a public statement, which no one had asked him to do, that he would never
violate the integrity of Austria; and, while he said it, he was plotting the
violation of that unfortunate land.
He
made the same statement about Czechoslovakia, and the same procedure followed.
It has
become a formula, showing the direction to which his eyes are turned, and it
has the same value as the growl of a hungry beast.
If we
accept statements in Mein Kampf more confidently, it is not because we
wish to believe evil - and they are of very sinister import for the world's
peace - it is because so many of them have been confirmed by the events that
followed. The credence we give to those which are still to come shows that we
are willing to accept Herr Hitler's word, if he will give us any solid ground
for such confidence. But it is an unfortunate fact, which no blinking of eyes
can change, that if he were to swear, by whatever gods, that, if we should give
him colonies, he would continue their present decencies of administration, or that
he would not arm the native populations to attack their neighbours, his word
would be worth nothing. A lie may bring immediate profit, but that
worthlessness is its future price.
Practical
Difficulty of Disarmament
This
characteristic of the present ruler of Germany is one of the major tragedies of
Europe's position today. It would remain a practical hindrance to disarmament,
even though all Germany's real or alleged grievances were removed and she were
actually sincere in intending peace. It would be particularly dangerous to
enter into an air-pact with her, unless there were a strictness of supervision
to which she would be unlikely to submit.
The
German armament manufacturers have been trained already concealment of what
they do; and three or four years ago, when the haste and energy of military
preparations were already evident to anyone with average intelligence and open
eyes who passed through the country, Hitler will not forget the fact - and
neither should we - that the English Government (not widely different in its
composition from that of today) concerned itself only to deny that Germany was
re-arming at all, and to obstruct the circulation of any book which was bad
mannered enough to expose that which they were resolved they would not see.
Looking at the condition of Europe today, even they may perceive that to
"cry peace where there is no peace" may be a very dangerous game.
But no
one who has read Mein Kampf can easily doubt that, if the rest of Europe
should agree upon a programme of disarmament, the temptation to Hitler to use
the chance for the world-domination of which he dreamed when he was an obscure
man would be very great.
XXVIII
Of
Those Who Died
It is commonly said that if those
whose lives were lost in the last war can see the sequel of what they did they
must conclude that they died in vain.
Perhaps they can; and perhaps they do so conclude. But can we be sure that
their reasons would be the same as appear decisive to those by whom this remark
is most often made?
Some
of them supposed that they fought for freedom of thought and speech, and for
the integrity of an Empire which meant that, and other things which seemed
valuable to them.
May
they not have thought that they died in vain as they watched Germany re-arm in
the midst of a Europe which lacked courage to interfere? As they watched her
plot to bring a new blight of tyranny on the world? As they saw statesmen of
the great democracies do nothing to suppress the peril while it could have been
done at a modest cost, and that they were only concerned to persuade
themselves, and to tell the foolish people who gave them trust, that there was
no cause for alarm?
It
would be an excellent thing for humanity if it could end war, and no one could
have a greater purpose for which to die. But it is mere cant to say that they
did that. They no more fought to end war than to deflect the course of the
moon.
They
fought to prevent Germany bestriding a prostrate world, as she aimed to do, and
they gave their lives for a purpose which did not fail.
Inter
alia they fought to prevent Germany many possessing herself of tropical
Africa, for which she had drawn her plans, and they succeeded in that. If we
surrender it now, at the mere sound of Hitler's hysteric scream on the air,
they may see indeed that their sacrifices were vain for us, if not for their
own souls. They might say with Rua:
"I
died a death for a man. I had given the life of my soul to save an unsavable
clan."
Much
that is spoken over their graves at each Armistice Day Anniversary may, or may
not, be pleasing to God; but it clearly blasphemes the dead.
XXIX
Nazi
Intolerance
The plain fact is that Naziism is
incompatible with the liberty of any non-German population over which it may
gain control. For a German who regards it as admirable, it may give freedom of
a kind, but it is merciless, not only to its opponents, but to those whom it
regards as inferior in the racial scale - which includes all the inhabitants of
the earth (except, quaintly enough, not only the Italians, but the Japanese!)
who lack the advantage of German blood.
No
argument of equity could give it licence to extend its intolerant rule over
those who have known the blessings of freer air.
Let
us, at least, avoid the cowardice of calling a base act by a better name.
If any
of the ex-German colonies be returned to her it will not be an act either of
justice or wisdom; for no one reasonable well informed can suppose that it will
benefit either us or them, or even tend to the enduring peace of the world.
Like the abandonment of Czechoslovakia by France, it will be an act of fear.
After-effects
of Surrender
It may
also commence the breaking up of a Commonwealth of Nations which will have
shown itself lacking either in strength or courage to guard those who are in
its pale, for the British Empire is too rich, and as yet too empty, of heritage
to be held by a timid race. And if it fail, the twilight of human liberty will
not be distant to fall.
For if
we yield these or other lands, and their peoples, to the importunities or
threats which we are likely to hear in the coming months, it will be because we
have the fear of a German pistol against our ribs, and it will be to the sound
of the world's laughter that we shall attempt to give it a nobler motive than
that.
Let us
quail to force if we lack manhood to hazard the threat of war, but let us still
be frank with ourselves as to what we do. Let us not call wrong right, as we
have already called Germany's destruction of a weaker neighbour by smoother
words than it deserved.
For
that would be the last surrender - that of honest speech, even before Hitler's
orders for its restriction have reached our ears.
XXX
Results
of Abandoning Czechoslovakia
It is often difficult to visualise
the effect of a single change upon its environment in advance of the event, but
it may be of vital consequence to do so accurately.
It was
impossible to impress even normally intelligent people with the certain
consequences of a German entrance into Czechoslovakia until the catastrophe had
occurred. They visualised it as the return of a small German minority to the
integrity of a Fatherland from which they had been nefariously exiled, and
though German manners might be bad and their methods of approaching the problem
not quite what we would have liked them to be, the matter was still one in
which it did not much concern us to interfere, even if it should not be
regarded with friendly eyes.
In the
same way the return to Germany of the colonies which she seized towards the
close of the last century and lost thirty years later, is vaguely visualised as
an act of goodwill, good-humour, "appeasement," or even justice,
without detailed consideration of what it would involve, or imaginative
foresight of how we should be placed on the next day.
The
episode of Czechoslovakia is at an end, and its price has been largely paid. It
was France's dishonour rather than ours, for it was she who had pledged herself
to that country's defence. It was she who had advised the fortification of
frontiers which she afterwards pressed her ally to abandon without even
receiving monetary compensation for the guns she must leave in the hands of her
contemptuous foe.
We may
be said to have done no more than to have looked down a path of dishonour with
tempted eyes where France has gone far ahead. For it is a fact that we
mobilised our fleet, and had France been true to her own pledge, we should have
gone, however reluctantly, into a war which was not primarily ours.
The
Price of "Peace"
All of
which is common knowledge now, and need not be recalled except for the lesson
that may lie in the fact that France, whose honour was the more darkly soiled,
is the one who comes out with the far heavier loss. Six months ago she had
strong alliances in Eastern Europe. Where are they now? She had given pledges
on which weaker nations relied. What would her word be worth in the Near East
now, from Latvia to Greece?
Poland
- a country with a historic habit of choosing the wrong side, which has
destroyed her before, and may again - deserted her instantly, though it is an
easy prophecy that she will soon be knocking again at what may prove to be a
closed door. The Russian alliance, always of dubious value, is more unreliable
now than it was before.
Czechoslovakia, which might have engaged thirty German divisions for many
weeks, even if it had done no better than that, is a lost friend. Her
aeroplanes might have been less than sufficient for her own defence, but, at
the least, they would have brought many of those of Germany down. The guns that
pointed across the German frontier from those fortifications which French
engineers and Czech labour had made so strong, have been moved now - thirteen
hundred of them, it is said - to point from the German frontiers, not against
Czechoslovakia, which has become negligible, but against the frontiers of
France herself.
The
Price France Paid
That
was the Munich price which France paid because she dare not face the threat (or
the bluff) of war. She bought, at a great price, something which we call peace
for lack of a more accurate word.
Our
Price Would Be?
What
we have to ask ourselves is what price would be ours to pay if we should go by
the same road, giving, for nominal peace, lands which are not ours except as
being held in a high trust for those who occupy them, and are too weak for
their own defence? - who have supposed for the last twenty years that they
could safely
"Take shelter underneath our shield."
It
might be no less than the disintegration of the British Commonwealth, which,
with all its faults and imperfections, is the most successful experiment in
political, social, and international freedoms of which history has record.
It
would break up because it would have proved incompetent or unwilling to defend
those whom it had admitted to its peaceful fold.
Two
Essential Conditions
The
existence of the British Commonwealth of Allied Nations depends upon two
essential conditions: That the possibility of internecine warfare has been put
away, and that it may be strong enough to defend itself from outer foes.
The
first of these conditions is well established, as is also that of permanent
peace with the United States, and it is in this direction, and not in that of
conciliating nations which still make war their god, that the best hope of the
world's peace lies.
But
the second condition is equally basic.
Probable
consequences of Surrender
A
month might not elapse after the Nazi landing at Dar es Salaam, and we might
still be discussing, so far as discussion would be allowed, the increase in the
German fleet which her new colonies would make so urgently necessary, before
Kenya would have reluctantly realised that the goodwill of Berlin had become
more important than that of London to her. And Cape Town might not be long in
realising, if not exactly the same thing, at least that the landing of Nazi
troops in South-West Africa implied that she must make herself strong for her
separate defence, or her liberties would not much longer survive.
Australia,
being told that Great Britain would not support her in the retention of New
Guinea, might evacuate it without resistance, and New Zealand might abandon
Samoa with the same docility. For what else could they do? But what would their
thoughts - what would their positions - be on the next day?
How
would they face the menace of Japan, with the British name eclipsed in the
East, and with Germany also about their door?
Canada, faced by the same threat - for what is it but the prestige of the
British name which has saved its western territories from Japanese penetration?
- would turn her eyes to the United States for help in a common cause.
Great
Britain herself, isolated and dis-credited, her trade shrinking as the dictator
countries tightened their economic grip on a cowering world, her population
continuing to diminish (for it is certain that a government which had
surrendered without strife to an outer foe would not have spirit - which it
lacks now - remaining to deal with that internal cancer), would look outward no
longer to conquered seas, but only backward to a great past, and inward at its
final shame.
Surely, if we are to be Carthage to Rome, which is not yet clear, we can make a
better ending than that!
It may
seem that we are far above such an abyss. But it is certain that we had begun
to slip, and it is a descent which must be arrested, if at all, at the top of
the slope.
XXXI
Hitler's
Contempt
We have Hitler's contempt today,
to which we cannot reasonably object. He regards democracy and incompetence as
synonymous words. He can point to reason for that, both in regard to ourselves
and our allies. Have we not a government which thought gas-masks more important
than guns? Did not Yugoslavia order ten destroyers from Germany because France
would not exert herself to make punctual delivery, preferring her bankrupt
treasury and her forty-hour week to the prosperity which only industry breeds?
Italy
Crows on the Fence
Italy
also crows on the fence. Signor Virginio Gayda, who has been called the
mouthpiece of Mussolini, writing in the Giornale d'Italia (November 4,
1938), discussing the world position, and the possibility of any recalcitrance
among the effete democracies, observed that there may still be some who may
make trouble before they recognise their subordinate position. "But,"
he concluded comfortably, "Italy, Germany and Japan can impose any
solution they wish by force."
Too
High a Boast
It is
a kind of boasting with which we are unlikely to compete, and it is with no
disposition to underestimate the power for evil of these three somewhat
blustering allies that we may remark that, so far, they have done little,
beyond the piling up of armaments, to justify so extreme a vaunt.
Japan's unprovoked assault upon China is not the species of military operation
which demonstrates the quality of an army as opposed to one of high training
and equipment; and the end is not yet.
As to
Italy, we had a war with Abyssinia once ourselves. We may compare it
confidently with Italy's adventures in the same region, alike in respect of its
occasion, its conduct, and its consequence. And we neither had aeroplanes nor a
huge mechanised army for our support, nor did we regard its success as a
world-shaking event.
As to
the record of Italian arms in Spain, there is no need to say much and, indeed,
there is not much to say.
We do
nod disparage Italian valour nor the Italian nation, who may have our
friendship, if they will, on most easy terms. But we may think that Signor
Gayda boasts of something which is not proved.
At the
same time it is necessary to observe that Hitler takes an even more truculent
tone. His Weimar speech of November 6, 1938, was one prolonged violence of
vituperation towards two of the four Powers of Western Europe who, by the
Munich precedent and the peace pact he signed with Mr. Chamberlain on that
occasion, were to combine to smooth out the political problems which disturb
the world.
It is
too evident that his idea of such co-operation is that Great Britain and France
shall be subordinate partners, attending to take orders, or to make humble
protests, rather than to enter into discussion on equal terms.
Indeed, Hitler has been ill-manneredly frank on that point. He said a few days
earlier that negotiation (and it is most probable that this question of
colonies was on his mind) is not to be interpreted as compromise. It is
understood in advance that he must have everything he desires, and the
conferences will be no more than convenient occasions for arranging the details
of the event.
Like
Signor Gayda, Herr Hitler boasts that he is far stronger than we, and that
force is the final court of appeal; but he expressed surprise that we should
think it necessary to arm ourselves. It was as though the Munich lesson of
subordination had not been completely learned!
And he
warned us, both in that speech and in the more recent one of January 31, 1939,
that to include Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Duff Cooper, or Mr. Eden in future
governments would be unwise. It is a matter on which he thinks that the final
vote should come from his own mouth.
Courtesy between nations is well, and it is well that their statesmen should be
of good accord; but if there is to be a purging of that kind, let it be pursued
equally in all lands, and the resignations of Herren Hitler, Goering, and
Goebbels should head the list.
We are
arming now - more or less vigorously - it having penetrated into the minds of
our Inner Cabinet that they could not hope to defeat any country so long as
40,000,000 gas-masks were the main item of our military equipment - which Herr
Hitler resents.
But he
knows that we have no aggressive purpose. He knows that we desire peace. He
knows that, if the gentlemen whose words annoy him were at the head of a
British Government tomorrow, they would make no war so long as he should act in
a neighbourly manner. His disquiet at our moderate armaments can only arise
from a fear, not that we shall attack him, but that we should resist some
indignity which he plans for a future day.
It is
a warning which we shall be obtuse if we do not heed.
XXXII
Millions
of Decent Germans
It would be a radical error of
diagnosis to fail to recognise that there must be millions of decent Germans
who desire peace for themselves and the world, and who are as antipathetic as
ourselves to the brutality of the Nazi rule.
It is
said, and should be as readily believed as are accounts of more sinister
events, that the Berliners who picnicked in woods to which hunted Jews had
fled, and in which they starved, readily shared their own sandwiches with these
persecuted outcasts, though they must have done even this act of elementary
humanity at some risk, knowing that scores of their fellow-citizens had been
jailed for no worse offence than verbal condemnation of the cruelties inflicted
upon these innocent people.
For
the moment, such elements of the German nation, whether few or many, have no
power, and must be disregarded when we assess the immediate dangers we have to
face. But the moment does not endure; nor does Hitler's criminal authority
remain precisely the same for a single hour. It must fluctuate under a thousand
influences, and it should surely be the aim of every civilised government
throughout the world to avoid any action which may tend to increase his
prestige, or that of his intimate colleagues, and so prolong the danger of
which all nations have become acutely aware.
Opportunities
Lost
There
have been opportunities, more than one, when we might have done much to expose
or discredit him to his own nation as the force which drags them through
slavery to the abyss, but we have either ignored them, or dealt with them in
such a way as actually to augment, and probably to prolong his power.
Most
recently the whole world has been given an opportunity, by the shameless
plundering and persecution of the Jewish citizens of Germany, of expressing its
indignation through the withdrawal of its accredited envoys, and has let it
pass.
Had
every ambassador and envoy left Berlin after delivering an identical note to
the effect that he had been sent under the mistaken impression that he was
being accredited to a civilised government, the truth of the event could hardly
have been concealed from the German public, and its moral effect upon them
might have been profound, even though the Japanese and Italian flags might
still have flown over their legation buildings, to demonstrate the solidity of
all peoples of Nordic blood!
But,
probably from lack of imaginations, rather than wills, the opportunity of
world-rebuke has gone by. Hitler, for the moment, has satisfied his treasury's
desperate needs by that wholesale theft; and German citizens, looking on, may
try to persuade themselves that there are excuses for what he did.
Opportunities
which we do not Miss
We
have let that opportunity pass, but there are those of an opposite kind which
we do not miss.
To
give Hitler colonies even to expose to the German public that we are paltering
with the idea - might be to give him further years of assured and augmented
power.
Each
objective he is allowed to gain increases his most dangerous arrogance, and
makes his otherwise precarious position in Germany more secure. Each time that
he and his associates appear likely to bankrupt their popularity, we allow them
fresh counters with which to play the infernal game.
A
War to Protect our Peace
We
have allowed ourselves to be forced into a position where, however reluctantly,
we may be driven to fight; and, if we are, we shall not again talk of a war to
end war, which is absurd, but of a war to protect our peace, which is precisely
what it will be. For it is the peace of the British Commonwealth of Nations,
the peace of freedom in thought and speech, which we should defend, and which
is worth defending, even at a great cost.
Mr.
Malcolm MacDonald, in a recent message to the National Liberal candidate at
Doncaster (November 12, 1938), appeared to think that it cannot be saved, or
perhaps we should say is not worth saving, being too weak to endure the hard
ordeal of war. He said:
What Mr. Malcolm MacDonald Thinks
of Democracy
"There
are those who urge that we should cease to strive for peace, and that war is
inevitable if democracy is to be saved. Those who advocate, this course have
little foresight. Whoever won another war, democracy would certainly be counted
among the casualties. In the anarchy of war and its aftermath, people would
turn to more facile and desperate forms of government. If there be a long
period of peace I believe that liberty will gradually extend its sway again; if
war came, it would be doomed."
Well,
if that be so, it is a case of Heil, Hitler! for he has shown us the
better way. If democracy can only exist by his forbearing permission, we may
well look round for a more secure foundation on which to build.
But
while continuing to urge that we should not cease to strive for peace,
though recognising that the shadow of war grows darker with every week, and
believing that, if the position were faced more boldly, there would be better
hope (though still not much) that it would withdraw, it is still possible to
think Mr. MacDonald's faith in "democracy" - by which, however, we
may not mean quite the same thing - to be weaker than it deserves.
The
Peril we have to Face
In any
case, we shall not alter facts by objecting to recognise that we are facing a
world-peril of the first magnitude, nor that it is one that has a deeper root
than the character and ambitions of Adolf Hitler, or the terms of the
Versailles Treaty - for were there not the same instincts, the same intentions,
even the same methods, in the policies and practices of the old German Empire,
and in those of the Prussian kingdom from which it came?
The
wars which Bismarck deliberately provoked seventy or eighty years ago were the
first sparks of a kindling fire which now threatens to consume the world.
We may
have no right - and no dis-position - to interfere with the internal economy of
another state, or its choice of rulers, so long as they do not directly
endanger ourselves, but when the author of such a book as Mein Kampf -
even as it is expurgated for the delusion of English readers - becomes the
supreme head of eighty million people, and sacrifices all other interests to
arm and discipline them for war, it is a position in which we may well be
roused to assert and protect ourselves; for he has made it clear that he will
not long be placated by gifts or by cringing words; nor can we pay such tribute
to him and retain the respect of other hostile elements in a watchful world.
XXXIII
Italian
Claims upon France
It was only as this book was being
finally revised for the press that the Italian claim for French territorial
surrenders became blatantly audible.
In
advance of that outcry, it had seemed inexpedient to suggest a casus belli
which had not become articulate in the world's ears, beyond the brief allusion
to Tunisia (see XXV Examples of Tunisia), the meaning of which would be plain
enough to those who already knew.
But
there can no longer be occasion for any reticence. Demands have been made upon
France, in a manner of deliberate insolence, for territorial concessions of an
intolerable character, which those who still strive and hope for the
preservation of peace argue may not be literally meant. They suggest that the
surrender of Djibouti, with some adjustment of Suez Canal tolls, and some
administrative changes in Tunisia, may be sufficient to satisfy the Italian
appetite, and that France may be disposed even to such terms as those, if she
can obtain the withdrawal of the Italian forces from Spain by no other means.
Those
who judge France in that way may be widely wrong. But even if that be
contemplated as a possible settlement, it remains difficult to suppose that
Italy would look on it in the same way. For such proposals would most naturally
have been made through the ordinary diplomatic channels, and with a courtesy
which would have made them less difficult to discuss.
If,
however, the demands which have been put forward are to be taken literally, and
are intended, under sufficiently favourable circumstances, to be pushed to the
decision of war, it is easy to see that nothing would be gained by any courtesy
of presentation, they being so destitute of moderation or equity that they
could be granted, if at all, only in a spirit of abject fear.
Such
surrenders are rarely asked, except from a beaten foe, and they appear to
spring from a conviction that France, having abandoned Czechoslovakia, will
accept whatever further humiliations may be required rather than appeal to the
decision of arms.
Does
This Concern Us?
It may
be superficially argued that these demands do not directly concern ourselves,
and still less the subject with which we are dealing; but this is not so.
The
position is that Britain and France, acting in alliance, have already suffered
diplomatic defeats of the gravest character, and the opinion is influentially
held in consequence, both in Germany and Italy, that either France or ourselves
will make almost any sacrifice rather than face the hazardous horrors of
European conflict.
They
are confident that they can obtain more than they have yet got, the only doubt
being how much.
That
is while Britain and France show a united front. To separate the two - to
induce either to yield - would, they consider, remove the last possibility of
resistance, and there would be nothing more to be done but to look round the
larders of the democracies, and select their meals.
In
this conclusion they may be wrong, on more points than one. The British Empire,
with its existence at stake, might, as Earl Baldwin has truly said, fight with
a unity and determination it has never previously known, even though it should
find itself faced by a world in arms.
It
faced a comparable position in the early years of last century, to which Mr.
Neville Chamberlain, visualising the possibility that it might recur, alluded
in the noblest passage of his Birmingham speech.
Our
position then was similar to what it would now be if Germany should have
subdued France; and at that time the United States were not of a friendly
temper. Yet Austerlitz was balanced by Trafalgar, and in the end we won
through.
So it
may be again. It is a danger we should not seek, yet which may be hard to
avoid.
The
circulation of the Berlin-Rome axis may be that if, at the same time, Germany
shall press for colonial, and Italy shall press France for territorial,
concessions, separately, but on parallel lines, one or other, if not both, will
give way. And if either should falter, they may believe, rightly or wrongly,
that both will fall.
France, having surrendered Tunisia and Djibouti for her own peace, would not
readily fight to save Tanganyika for us. Or if we can be bullied or cajoled
into handing back the ex-German colonies, we shall be ill-disposed to fight to
save Djibouti for France on the next day.
The
preservation of peace in Europe depends upon many incalculable factors. Some of
us may think it to be, at the best, no more than a slender hope; others accept
Herr Hitler's assurances in a more sanguine spirit. But we are all agreed that
it is the supreme issue of our time, and whatever the prospect be must finally
depend upon the replies which both Great Britain and France give to these
monstrous claims being so worded that those who have made them will realise
that there is no more to be had, unless it be by the path of disarmament and
goodwill, or at the cost of most bitter war.
Three
Choices
With
or without the French alliance we have three choices before us. We may meet
these colonial claims with a firm and unequivocal negative, with a debatable
possibility of war resulting. We may surrender to German demands, and so gain
some period of shamed, precarious peace. Or we may adopt an attitude of timid
compromise, hesitating either to yield or deny, which is the way of war,
certain and soon.
For
the German demand is not of a casual character. It has been the subject of
prolonged agitation in Germany, and of elaborately organised propaganda in this
country and in the threatened colonies for more than three years past, which
has been intensified during recent months.
Every
week the hopes of the German people are more highly raised upon a subject which
we may ignore, but they are not allowed to forget; every week their
expectations are more in-flamed. The Reich Colonial League, the members of
which are pledged to work for the return of the lost territories, was founded
in 1935. It has branches throughout Germany, which are controlled from Berlin,
and which conduct an incessant propaganda, representing the colonies as still
being parts of the Fatherland, only temporarily held apart, which their Fuehrer
has pledged himself to regain, as he will be sure and speedy to do.
Consistently with this expectation, the German Foreign Office is refusing
passports to Jews, even when under sentence of expulsion, if their final
destination be given as South-West Africa, or Tanganyika, on the ground that
they will not tolerate their presence in German colonies.
The
League publishes a Year Book. The 1939 edition assumes and asserts that England
will surrender promptly to German demands.
"The day will come," Herr Karlowa (a Nazi politician on the foreign
staff of Hitler's personal deputy, Rudolf Hess) confidently asserts, "when
the Fuehrer, after peaceful discussions with the other colonial Powers, will
call on the German youth to commence its march into the colonies."
The
propaganda value of this Year Book may be no less in its own country because it
asserts many things - such as the "attitude of race pollution" alleged
to be adopted by ourselves toward native peoples; the "vanished trust of
the coloured peoples in the leadership of the white races" which Germany
is to restore; or the superior security which the native African will enjoy
under the protection of the National Socialist Labour Front - which appear
fantastic to us.
A
prominent article in the Zwoelf-Uhr Blatt (February 1, 1939), purporting
to include quotations urging the surrender of colonies from "three British
politicians," was exposed in the London Press as particularly impudent
mendacity. The only accurate quotation which it contained was some observations
from the pen of Professor Dawson.
But
its exposure will not come under German eyes, and the cumulative effect of such
methods, supported, as they are, by an insidious propaganda which finds its
way, through whatever channels, into some British newspapers, and is then
reproduced in Germany - as representing authoritative British opinion, may be
very great.
The
demand for more than the return of the conquered colonies which is most
recently being made - this is, for a surrender of a proportion of the British
Empire which would leave the colonial possessions of Great Britain and Germany
in the ratios of their home populations - may sound too crazy for serious
consideration. But it remains sufficiently serious fact that the German
Colonial League should have been officially instructed to commence to agitate
for that solution.
It
will be noticed that the procedure is precisely that which was practised
against Austria and Czechoslovakia - that of the constantly increasing demand,
so that all concessions must lag behind.
Against such methods, and with such examples to warn us, we shall do well to
let it be known at once, in the clearest words, that we shall hold our
frontiers intact, rather than fall back upon weaker lines.
The End
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