LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[In view of the paper shortage it is essential that letters on these pages should be brief. We are anxious not to reduce the number of letters, but unless they are shorter they must be fewer. Writers are urged to study the art of compression.—Ed., " The Spectator "1
A NEW ORDER Sta,—Many voices today sound in our ears, calling on our Govern- ment to state plainly and at once what " new order " for the world
it has in mind if we win the war. Hitler's propaganda is reinforced —this is the common argument—by his presenting to the imagina- tion of men a " new order " to be established by German power ; so we, on our side, ought to win support to our cause by describing the new order which we are out to establish. I cannot help thinking that there is sadly confused thinking behind this demand. It fails to take account of the great difference between Hitler's positisn and ours. Hitler can declare what world order he intends to establish because the nations of Europe, if he wins, will be subject to his dictation, but we have no desire to impose our will upon other nations, once they are set free from the Nazi yoke. Our immediate object in this war is to set them free. What kind of order they then establish, in their internal affairs and in their dealings with each other, it will be for them, not for us, to say.
True, someone may interject ; yet we might at any rate declare what order we should like to see established ; we could put that before other nations in the hope that they will rally to it. Not even that seems to me possible at the present stage of affairs. It is not possible because the main question upon which our policy after the war will turn is one to which no answer can yet be given: What kind of Germany shall we have? Supposing a revolution in Germany brings into contrc4 elements which do away with the fear of any new German aggression, the apprcipriate world order will be quite different from the order required, supposing the evil will in Germany is merely held down, not eradicated. If the latter proves to be the case, some kind of federation or union among the other States of Europe will be necessary for a long time to come, and our task would be to persuade these States to enter into it with a genuine intention of acting, should emergency arise. The weak point in any idea of a federation or international police force which embraces all the States of Europe, is that, supposing any major State has the will to aggress, a federation with such a member would have an insecure consistence and break up at the critical moment, whereas, supposing the evil will were wholly eliminated from the European family of States, no protective federation or international police would be needed.
While, however, it is impossible to say what world order we hope to see established, so long as we do not know what kind of Germany we are going to have after the war, there are, I think, certain declara- tions we might make regarding characteristics which any settlement must have, in our view, if it is to be satisfactory.
We might affirm once again that we nave no intention of breaking up Germany into separate States. Of course, if the Germans them- selves wished to dissolve their union, why should they not? Some Germans—like the author of Germany—Pkyll and Hyde—do hold that the Germans would have a better, happier life if they broke up the Reich. Some Bavarians would have liked in 1919 to have been attached to Austria, not to Prussia. We ought to insist on an honest plebiscite in Austria to determine whether the majority of Austrians want to continue attached to the Reich or not. But we should make it clear that if the Germans wish to remain united in one State we shall make no attempt to force them apart.
Another thing we might declare is that we desire an order in which all peoples, so far as is possible, have equal facilities for procuring raw materials from non-European countries. Every nation which administers a colony, in Africa or elsewhere, should keep the door open for the trade of all nations on an equal footing, and if conditions of exchange put the nationals of any State at a disadvan- tage an endeavour should be made to remedy this by some special arrangements. While the international administration of colonial territories may be undesirable, we might declare ourselves ready to agree to some form of international supervision for all government of backward peoples on the lines of the mandate system. How far the mandate system established after the last war can continue in being depends, I suppose, on whether there is any central international body—a restored League of Nations or something of the sort to which mandatories have to report. Germany could be associated in such international control.
Further, we might declare ourselves ready to fall in with arrange- ments between ourselves and other nations for all purposes in which common interests are involved, on the analogy of postal arrangements in the past. Personal intercourse in travel and exchange of goods might in that way be greatly facilitated.
Then, again, we might declare that we had no intention, if the Germans laid down their arms, of imposing a settlement upon them without a fair discussion 'in which they could put forward their views and objections. We should not, that is to say, desire that the new settlement should be a Diktat in the way the Peace of Versailles was.
• No doubt in one sense any peace in which a victor imposes his terms is a dictated peace, and the new peace is bound to be a dictated peace in that sense. If the Germans failed to convince us by argu- ment that their objections to something we proposed were valid, we should naturally impose our will in the last resort in spite of them. But we should not do so, as at Versailles, without first giving them an opportunity to talk, and should endeavour to reach decisions, where possible, by agreement and not by force.
Lastly, our Government may think it wise to declare that this time we shall not demand any indemnities or reparations from a defeated Germany. This might cause an outcry in some circles here. Germany, having brought the necessity of this frightful expenditure updn us, ought, they feel, to pay the bill. But it is surely a mistake for our policy to be guided by a consideration of what Germany deserves, by a desire to punish Germany. What the Nazi brutes deserve is something as bad, God knows, as any monsters of cruelty have ever deserved, but we need not, if we are Christians, have any doubt as to their getting it—hereafter, if not here. Anybody who reads such a book as A Mother Fights Hitler may well find it a comfort to believe in hell. Our aim should be, not to punish Germany, but to render Germany innocuous. Thus we should be inflexible, after this war, in seeing that Germany is disarmed, and remains disarmed. Had we after the last war, forgone reparations, but insisted upon disarmament, we might never have had to incur the gigantic expenditure of • the present war. To forgo reparations, when we feel that we are entitled to them in justice, may go against our inclinations, but, on a long view, I believe, it would pay.
All these things, I suggest, we could declare now, and although our doing so would make no difference, for the moment, to the enemy's resistance, it might encourage the better elements in Germany, later on, to oppose a continuation of the war.—Yours, &c.,
Yatscombe Cottage; Boar's Hill, Oxford. EDWYN EEVAN.
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