[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Has your correspondent, Mr.
R. S. Cruickshank, who condemns Mr. Baldwin " for the lamentably weak condition of Great Britain," forgotten that he, like the rest of us, was for 17 years working for Disarmament, peace by negotiation, and all the other chimerical ideals of the League of Nations Union ? Had Mr. Baldwin said in 1934 : Halt ! In four years' time there will arise, under Hitler, another great menace of militarism which will seek to dominate Europe. Let us drop this disarmament nonsense and arm to the teeth "- people would have thought he was qualifying for a lunatic asylum. You cannot ride two horses going in opposite direc- tions at once.
Nor am I much impressed with Mr. Attlee's simile of a ship driving on the rocks and asking : " Who had brought the vessel into danger ? " Rocks are stationary objects and navigators are supposed 'to know all about them. But Dictators' actions are unpredictable things. A better simile would be a game of chess in which you cannot foresee your opponent's moves.
I think it is now generally admitted that, in the words of the Lord Chancellor, Czechoslovakia is a State that should never have come into existence. As we have already granted self-determination to three of our dependencies and the U.S.A. have granted it to Cuba and the Philippines it would be rather foolish to start a world war on such a pretext. Had Germany been a member of the League, the latter would probably have conceded the Sudeten areas without demur.
Are your correspondents quite sure that, even if we could mobilise England, France, Russia and the U.S.A. (an unlikely occurrence) against Germany and Italy, fighting on their own ground, we should necessarily be successful ? All the historians of the Great War (including Messrs. Lloyd George, Churchill and Duff Cooper) have emphasised the narrowness of our victory in that great struggle. Having emerged from that catastrophe by a miracle from on high would it not be madness to put our necks a second time into that appalling noose to prevent Germans joining their Fatherland ?
Last Sunday a considerable fraction of the nation went to church to thank the Almighty for granting us peace and on the very doorstep some were criticising the man who had got them this inestimable blessing !
Is it not strange that people who, to spite what they call " Imperialism," would give the Empire away, 'would still resist the cession of an inch of German territory to Germany on the heroic 'plea of " Standing up to Dictators," or " Defend- ing Democracy" I wonder if the writers of our Left Press "with their violent partisanship and tendentious presentation of the news really do their cause any good ? Surely their readers must wonder how a case such as' they 'make out—all black and all white— cuts so- little ice in Downing Street and why the persons so violently assailed never even deign to reply ? The most violent of these partisan journals only Caricatured Lord Runciman's valuable report and he was referred to as a " Mediator " (in inverted commas). Then the • descriptive writer takes a hand The grey figure" of Mr. Chamberlain is contrasted with the " resplendent figure " of their own particular hero who, when the crisis was at its gravest, made a party speech in a political 'club. What is the value of the opinions of people who would 'attack the Government whatever it said or did and have themselves looped the loop in the last fevi months in the matter of pacifism and rearmament and are now shouting for war ?
This week I attended a Socialist meeting in the south-west area. The principal speaker, quoting from Karl Marx, told us that all wars arose from capitalism ; later he informed us that " the rich " did not want to fight because they wanted to preserve their money ; then for a moment he was a pacifist (" wars settle nothing ") ; then he stressed the strategic value of Spain and Czechoslovakia (like any wicked Im- perialist), winding up by banging the patriotic drum (" Britons never shall be slaves "). All the self-contradictory points of this speech were equally cheered by his uncritical audience anxious to destroy civilisation in the name of " Democracy " or " Liberty." Judging by your recent correspondence columns he does not seem to stand alone.
The B.B.C. are broadcasting facts and views to the Germans, French and Italians. I think it is time they did the same to us, from the German and Italian official viewpoint, so as to help us all to do a little clear thinking.—Yours, &c.,
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