THE GOVERNMENT'S INFORMATION
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—May I add a few personal notes to Miss Rathbone's letter about warnings concerning the exact date of Herr Hitler's march into Czecho-Slovakia? I feel a little diffidence in view of Professor Carr's reflections, in another part of your paper, about my probity as a recorder of things seen and heard, but I must take my chance.
On February 22nd I had to visit some camps near Prague in company with a Sudeten politician. As he is still a refugee from injustice I prefer not to give his name. He told me of information received from Germany of arrangements made, first for active outside intervention in Slovakia, and then for an invasion four days later. He actually gave the dates as March r2th and i6th for events which happened on the 1th and t5th. These warnings were well known to foreign Press correspondents, to Czech officials, and almost certainly to our British representatives.
A copy of this report was in at least one English party headquarters before the end of February. No one, including the Czech officials, took the report very seriously, because they thought that the British Government could not possibly permit such a direct invasion without any excuse.
This makes it all the harder to understand how an optimistic forecast could have been issued by Mr. Chamberlain at a time when he must have known that some preparations of this nature were being made in Germany, and also that his Government had no intention of preventing any action that Herr Hitler might take.
Those Englishmen who have obtained special information owing to working abroad during the last year or so have repeatedly been placed in an extremely difficult position. No one in England will take the least notice of statements unless they are backed by a kind of legally water-tight evidence which in practice is, of course, never possible. We only have such melancholy satisfaction as may accrue from watching our predictions fulfilled, and noting the rapidity with which the British Government and the Conservative Press change their views and forget their mistakes.—Yours sincerely,
G. T. GARRATT.
2 Whitehall Court, S.W.z.
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