POST-WAR EUROPE
TN his broadcast last Sunday evening Mr. Priestley asked very pertinently what we intend to do this time for the men who are fighting the war for us today. Many similar questions, some of them much larger, demand an answer. Two are of supreme importance : What sort of a society do we intend to construct at home? And what sort of a Europe do we hope to see emerge from the present carnage? For certain obvious reasons the second question is of even greater urgency than the first. In domestic life the first necessity is to strive to the utmost to preserve and perpetuate the changes for the better that the war has brought. The greatest of them all is a change in the national temper. The unity, profound and unmistakably genuine, into which Britons of all classes and creeds and vocations have been fused by a common danger, a common anger and a common faith in the victory of right over wrong must be maintained at whatever sacrifice. Political controversy, of course, there will and should be ; it is by conflict of opinions and the play of criticism that a democracy reaches sound conclusions. But the extreme disparities of wealth and poverty, of social standards and of opportunity, must go. The war is teaching us a great deal about all that. We shall know, for one thing, before it ends what may reason- ably be regarded as the minimum subsistence needs of an average family, and it must be a matter of national honour to see that no one is lacking in what that represents. The cost may fall heavily on the well-to-do, but they will not shirk it, or be tolerated if they try.
That is our own business, and we can deal with it when the occasion comes. Meanwhile it is very necessary to clarify our minds about the future of international relations. Herr Hitler has his views about the recon- struction of Europe. He expressed them with studied and prudent vagueness in his recent speech ; to enter into detail would be to show their hollowness and expose them to devastating criticism. But if he can claim to be correct- ing territorial injustices and to be ready now to give peace to a conquered and ravaged continent, he will, in the absence of any clear indication of what a British victory would entail, gain the ear of his unhappy victims, who will soon be preferring peace on any terms even to the recovery of independence. Can we convince Europe that we can give it, coupled with freedom, more prosperity than Hitler can give it coupled with enslavement? If we cannot do that Hitler wins, and if we are going to do it the moment to begin is now. And, let it be added, the place to start from is the place in which we find ourselves today. This is no time for the framing of elaborate constitutions for this or that new organisation. What is needed is to find practical answers to the intensely practical questions that will face the Continent when the war is over, or before.
The first and greatest, is how a repetition of this carnage is to be prevented. One motive and one alone took us into war : the resolve that the domination of Europe by a single nation, relying on force and terrorism to gain its ends, should be checked and broken. Our first task is to achieve that, and the burden at present falls on ourselves alone. We are equal to it, and our growing strength will increasingly gain for us the support of States in Europe which look to us with sympathy and to Germany with fear. Fear today predominates, but the first demonstration that Germany has reached the limit of her conquests will dispel it. And every State whictiGermany has either crushed or subjected by threats will be as convinced as we are—and even more so, because they have more to fear—that some force musz exist in Europe strong enough to keep the strongest single State in check. That is the immediate and imperative need, and that must be the starting-point for any plan of reconstruction. A way must be found to succeed, when we failed last time, in banishing war as an instrument of decision between States and establishing a security based on acknowledged law. To accept that principle and all that flows from it—the drastic reduction of national arma. ments and international control of adequate armed force: an international budget to provide for the maintenance of that force ; an international organisation for determining the use of the force, for effecting the settlement of disputes and modifications of the status quo and for promoting con. structive co-operation in the political and economic fields —is fully sufficient at this juncture. To be tempted into disputes and divisions about forms and procedures and degrees of surrender of national sovereignty would be fatal. Our business is to proclaim to Europe our determination to take the lead in creating some organisation that will preclude for the future the domination of Europe by any single Power, whether Germany or Russia or Great Britain itself. That is what we offer as an alternative to the reduc- tion of two-thirds of Europe to Lebensraum for Germany.
But nations need much more than political assurances. A secure livelihood may often mean more to the individual than political status, for if man does not live by bread alone he cannot live without it. Hitler will soon be claiming to be organising Europe economic- ally, no doubt with one supreme objective throughout —Germany's advantage—and there will be a certain speciousness in the claim that organisation of a kind has taken the place of chaos. Our aim is efficient organisation for the general benefit, and it is essential that we make that known to Europe. It involves readiness on the part of all States, ourselves not least, to reduce tariff barriers and share fully with their fellow-members of any future society of States such economic privileges as they may be supposed (in our case it is largely supposition) :o enjoy. Germany is at one grave disadvantage in her economic schemes in Europe. Many countries with con- siderable potentialities need capital for their development. Germany is not in a position to lend. We are, and we should make the most of our advantage. Germany, indeed. by the demands she is making on conquered or tributary States, is reducing their populations to destitution. Our programme will involve such developments in production, such organisation and improvement of distribution, that a gradual rise in standards of living will be possible every- where. That is a programme to advertise forthwith.
And one necessity is even more immediate. Europe has the threat of a winter famine before it. Hitler will proclaim that the cause of that is the British blockade, and peoples that need food even more than they need freedom will be easy dupes of the cry that they are being starved because the seas are closed by a nation that insists on fighting when all cause for war is over. The cause for war will not be over till freedom has been restored to every State in Europe, but meanwhile the truth regarding famine 10 Europe must be made known. It is computed by the best authorities that there is in Europe today, west of Russia and excluding Great Britain, enough food to provide adequate subsistence for twelve months ahead or little less. Much of it is stored in Germany. If there is famine ID e vast area under German sway it will be because Hitler unable (as he well may be in the desolation he has eared) or unwilling to distribute the food existing. taly's wanton belligerence has added to the chaos. Grain utes from the Balkans through the Mediterranean to the rts of North-West Europe have been closed. No American ips can bring corn or anything else to the war-zone. he man to thank for that is the man who began this war y his unprovoked attack on a Poland to which he had romised peace by a ten-years' treaty. From that all the evil by which Europe is submerged today has flowed. If Hitler now decides to starve the Continent he has con- quered let there be no doubt, and let our Ministry of Information see to it that no doubt is possible, on whose shoulders the responsibility lies. We are fully prepared to assist any genuinely neutral State to the best of our ability. We have rightly been helping Spain to acquire wheat and other foodstuffs that she needs. But while war continues we cannot feed nations which Hitler has starved and still controls.
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