[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
is now nearly two months since Mr. Chamberlain returned from Munich. At the moment of writing the French Press of all opinions suspects the intentions of our Government today and Hitler springs an attack, which might have been written by Auden and Isherwood, on our Government of tomorrow. One or other of our leaders, with the mysterious archness of a Christmas conjurer, " deprecates " one day, " assures " the next, "is fully aware" every now and then, and constantly "notes with eager satisfaction.'.' What wonder, then, that a vague politeness, or, in the political language of today, "a warm tribute" to Mr. Chamberlain personally marks the limit of German official good manners towards us ? Or that the French people, since September, are recalculating the market value of a defensive alliance ?
For the position in which we find ourselves is exactly that of the Weimar republic, and without the nervous paralysis of a defeat in war. We stand for nothing, except an undefinable pacifism ; we represent no positive idea of any kind ; we are not even frank about our one certainty. We are not arming against the totalitarians, oh dear no. If ever we are sufficiently strong, we never shall use our arms to enforce our arguments, far from it. While the totalitarians announce an intention and act on it, not a responsible voice in England has been heard to assert the will of our people to a humane liberalism, to tolerance based on justice, to a wise liberty : qualities which we like to think particularly English.
And yet that will exists ; and by the time it has fallen back into apathy, the Government will no doubt be poking it obscurely into flame again, to facilitate conscription. Why then has our will not been used in the last months, and used imaginatively ? Why have those who offered their, services been met generally with evasion or a rebuff? And those who sit at home received no indication, except from their daily paper, that they may ever be wanted ? I could name a woman who at nineteen was driving an ambulance in the last War, proving unusual organising ability into the bargain. Her offer of service, made months before the crisis, has not yet received even an answer. If expense were the obstacle, the Government must know that there is a considerable number
of men and women who, rather than be flung into a job at the outbreak of war for which they have had no previous training, would cover their own costs without question. No, the Labour Party, by setting its face against rearmament without policy has really touched the core of the question. The Government has not called upon us because, for the moment, we have nothing except our money to defend ; because, with the disasters of a policy of expediency behind us, we have still elected no guiding principle to justify our strength.
Any party which is to represent an England worth pre- serving must first embody an idea capable of restoring to the common man his faith in our civilisation. Germany has
thrown off the defeatism of the Weimar republic by doing exactly that. Germany has become a moral idea. If we wish to survive as an independent Power, to bring Germany and Italy back to civilisation, it can be done only by opposing their faith with a stronger fitith.—Yours, &c.,
ALAN PRYCE-JONES.
Travellers' Club, Pall Mall, S.W. r.
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