A Nationalist Abroad

Walks and Talks Abroad. liy sir Anteld (Oxford

University Press. 6s.)

I FORGET which Victorian worthy it was who deplored the inconsiderate dispensation of Providence whereby "only

lying histories are readable." The-reviewer of Sir Arnold Wilson's •Walks and Talks Abroad (a pendant to the delightful series of "walks and talks" in his own constituency which

he published a couple of years• ago) is- tempted to lament that only the wrong opinions are so clearly, so cogently and

so courageously expressed. Sir Airtold Wilson earns our gratitude by always going straight to the point. This is

how he began a lecture which he delivered-- in Hamburg on "the English outlook " : " I am a British, and, indeed, primarily an English,- nationalist. If J am also an Imperialist it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position, has been to strike fresh roots in distant lands. The limits of my love of ,country are not geo- graphical but racial. Not the soil of England, dear as it is to me, binds me to the nation of which I am a part, but the speech, the tradition, the spiritual heritage, the principles and the aspirations of the British race, wherever they dwell. . . I am, I repeat, nationalist, not a cosmopolitan—not one who necessarily thinks his nation better than, or is unwilling to learn from, others, but one who believes that his duty is to his own nation and that te enable every man and woman in a nation to develop the best that is in them is the best way to ensure national development and international peace."

That is excellently put. Vet is it really the whole "English outlook" ? Is there not a note missing which will make this passage jar a little on the ear of -many keenly patriotic Englishmen ? • Be this as it may, Sir Arnold Wilson remains an impenitent nationalist ; and as such, he is particularly well qualified to interpret to his fellow-countrymen the present nationalist

regimes in Italy and Germany, to which the. greater .part of the book is devoted. (It is a pity, by the way, that he did

not, for purposes of comparison, visit the third great totali- tarian State in Russia.) The lion's share of his attention and admiration goes, rightly enough, to Germany. Sir Arnold is an honest, as well as a patient, observer.

"There was in the atmosphere of the eamp (he writes after a visit to Dachau) something against which my soul revolted.- Prisoners in a regular gaol do not fear, and are not feared by. their warders, but between the losing and the winning sides in a civil. war there is hatred and fear ;• and so it was here."

But on the whole Sir Arnold has been won over. The older generation spoke of the follies and injustices of the Versailles Treaty, and drew his attention to Mr. Balfour's and Sir William Robertson's memoranda of 1916 which Mr. Lloyd George prints in his memoirs. (Perhaps, on the English side, a reasonable peace would still have been possible in 1916, but would it on the German ?) The younger generation—students and working men and young Nazis—told him of the new faith and the new unity, the new discipline and the new eagerness to work together in the name of the German people. It would be a. mistake to deride or depreciate the earnestness and

enthusiasm of young Germany because it speaks a different

idiom- from our own. , Many of these observations will command general assent: The time is past when serious critics could regard Herr Hitler

as an unaccountable maniac and National Socialism as a pass- ing aberration. But reserves. there must be in-our admiration,, as even Sir Arnold sees ; and the explanation of the pheno- menon can perhaps best be -sought in terms of historical per= speetive. Germany and Italy are young nations with not- more than sixty or seventy years of rather chequered history' behind them. The fundamental problem which Herr Hitler- and Signor Mussolini have had to face is one which has long ceased to be a problem in Great Britain and France : the creation of national unity. • The methods of - the Tudor' sovereigns, when they were making the English nation, invite' many comparisons with those of the Nazi regime in Germany.,' Sir Arnold has discovered a more modern *arrant for Sign& Mussolini in a letter written by that respected Victorian, H. 31. Stanley, in 1866.

. . " Let us hope (wrote Stanley) that, having taken the first step,: united Italy, heir of Roman fame, genius and enterprise, will' emulate in Africa the vigour which enabled aacient Rome to reaely, the height of her glory. Massawah is an important strategic.

point. but if you stop here. it will only 14e colony of .senlienenti."' Go ahead, gain influence in the finetior,. Otehpy 'strategic piiiats,:

and en,courage trade. ..Ethiopia. can become your gramary ; the Galls country may have great commercial importance. Do nc.t wait upon events, but work."

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It is true that there was no mustard-gas in 1866; but other Victorian methods of colonisation in Africa were not much more squeamish ; and some of Joseph Chamberlain's utterances, not forty years ago, about the necessity for Pro- tecting the British minority in the Transvaal provide an uncomfortable- parallel to pronouncements in Mein- Kampf about the German colonies in Central- Europe.- Such in outline.is Sir Arnold Wilson's plea for an indulgent judgement of his fellow nationalists on the Continent of Europe. On points of detail,- only a few criticisms suggest themselves. It-is surely unfair to say that the treaty provisions about Danzig "have no economic and no racial justification," and are " the outcome of false doctrines of -security and revenge," They were, in fact, a most conscientious attempt to reconcile the "economic" needs of Poland and the " racial " claims of Germany ; and Sir Arnold himself justifies them when he admits that," Danzig depends for prosperity on Poland.'" and that "Germany needs no more ports." Whether the Danzig settlement was really workable is another question. • But no part of the treaty was more free from the unhappy inspiration of "security and revenge." Elsewhere one is surprised to find Sir Arnold telling Signor Mussolini that "Italy and Ger- many seem to be almost alone in Europe today in encouraging and initiating expenditure on public works." But perhaps this was intended as a little bit of sugar for the bird.

Details apart, however, the main issue is still unsolved. According to Sir Arnold Wilson's lights, Signor. Mussolini has deserved well of his country. Yet Sir Arnold is not altogether happy. "An official of the Italian Foreign Office" admitted to him, with engaging frankness, that Italy intended to recruit Ethiopian troops, and- that "the British 'protectorates in Kenya and the Sudan will be the first to-suffer." All no doubt is fair in nationalism. • But the prospect is none the less uncomfortable even for the most hardened British nationalist ; and Sir Arnold, while condemning League sanctions rdot and branch, thinks that we should have "withdrawn our Ambas- sador and withheld financial succour." Even nationalism, it seems, lands its supporters in strange inconsistencies. When I had finished Walks and Talks Abroad I turned back to the first chapter to make sure that I had quoted correctly the passage from the lecture-at Hamburg about national elf- development as 'the best. way to ensure . . . international peace." Yes, there it is in black and white ; and I am sure that the Hamburg audienee sincerely believed it.

E. H. CARL