It is interesting to observe how, in this manner, the
doc- trine of appeasement changes its formula in condonation of each new aggression. When Herr Hitler seized the Rhine- land, Austria and the Sudetenland, we were told by the appeasers that these dangerous actions must be excused, nay even welcomed, on the principle of self-determination. When the Fiihrer himself violated that principle by the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, our appeasers (after three days of glum and glutinous silence) spoke brightly about Germany's need for expansion, about the fairness of the fiction of the "Lebensraum." And now that both the racial and the spatial arguments. are giving place to an overt attempt to crush Poland and thereby to dominate Europe, we are assured by our appeasers that the Germans are by nature a dominating race and that to oppose their desires is to fly in the face of natural evolution. M. Flandin's piti- able yelp of defeatism recalled to my mind a conversation overheard last week from that area of the back benches in which Captain Margesson congregates his claque. " You know," said one elderly Conservative to his neighbour, " I am a trifle uneasy about this Polish agreement. It seems to me to imply a definite commitment on our part." " I quite agree," answered his companion, " and we must thank heaven that we have Neville at the helm."
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