[Part 6]

 

 

 

“I am deeply stirred by the word which Ulrich Hutten wrote the last time he seized his pen: — Germany.”

ADOLF HITLER

January 30th, 1937

 

 

 

The Case for Germany 

 

A Study of Modern Germany 

 

by

A. P. Laurie

M. A. Cantab., D. Sc., LL. D. Edin., F. C. S., F. R. S. E.

With a Preface by Admiral Sir Barry Domvile

K. B. E., C. B., C. M. G.

Berlin W 15

Internationaler Verlag

1939

FIRST EDITION ………… JUNE 1939

SECOND EDITION ……. JULY 1939

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN GERMANY

DEDICATION

It is with admiration and gratitude for the great work he has done for the German people that I dedicate this book to the Fuhrer.

A. P. L.

TO THE READER

There are two sides to every question. You have read one side in our Press for six years.

This book gives the other side.

A. P. L.

 

PREFACE

 

It is a great pleasure to me to introduce the public to Dr. Laurie’s valuable book on modern Germany. He is best known to the world as a brilliant scientist, but he has found time in the intervals of his work to pursue with ardour the task upon which every sensible member of the British and German races should be engaged — namely the establishment of good relations and a better understanding between these two great nations.

Dr Laurie knows full well that this friendship is the keystone to peace in Europe — nay, in the whole world.

He is one of the small group who founded the Association known as “The Link”, whose sole aim is to get Britons and Germans to know and understand one another better. He is one of the most zealous workers in this good cause in the country.

He writes of the National Socialist movement with knowledge and great sympathy.

The particular value of this book lies in the fact that it is written by a foreigner, who cannot be accused of patriotic excess in his interpretation of the great work done by Herr Hitler and his associates. I recommend this volume with confidence to all people who are genuinely impressed with the desire to understand one of the greatest — and most bloodless — revolutions in history.

BARRY DOMVILE

Robin’s Tree

8th May 1939.

 

 

“As we advance in our social knowledge, we shall endeavour to make our governments paternal as well as judicial; that is, to establish such laws and authorities as may at once direct us in our occupations, protect us against our follies, and visit us in our distresses; a government which shall repress dishonesty, as now it punishes theft; which shall show how the discipline of the masses may be brought to aid the toils of peace, as the discipline of the masses has hitherto knit the sinews of battle; a government which shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare as well as its soldiers of the sword, and which shall distribute more proudly its golden crosses of industry — golden as the glow of the harvest — than it now grants its bronze crosses of honour — bronzed with the crimson of blood.”

RUSKIN. Political Economy of Art.

 

 

“All front fighters fought side by side and went through an inferno. They are all comparable to the heroes of the ancient world. It was the manhood of the nations in their prime who fought and experienced the horrors of modern war.

In another war the flower of the nations’ men and women will have to fight. Europe will be destroyed if the best in all of the nations are wiped out. A new conflict will exceed even the ghastly tragedies of the Great War.

I believe that those who rattle the sabres have not participated in war. I know that war veterans speak and think differently.

They energetically desire to prevent another conflict. I hope that the men who are standing before me can contribute to preserve the peace of the world — a peace of honour and equality for all.

Let us not talk of prestige as between the victors and the defeated. This is my one request: Forget what has divided the nations before and remember that history has advanced.”

Field Marshal GOERING addressing the British

and German war veterans.

 

 

CONTENTS

 

CHAPTER ……………………………………………………………. PAGE

 

Dedication

To the Reader

Preface

Field Marshall Goering’s Address

I.   DER FUHRER ……………………………………………………….. 11

II.   THE BELEAGUERED CITY ……………………………………. 21

III.   NATIONAL SOCIALISM ……………………………………… 25

IV.   THE NAZI RALLYS AT NUREMBERG ……………………. 34

V.   THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GERMANY ……………………. 41

VI.   ENGLAND AND GERMANY ………………………………….. 49

VII.   MARCH 7th, A MOST IMPORTANT DATE …………… 54

VIII.   THE REAL ENEMY OF EUROPE ……………………….. 58

IX.   COMMUNISM VERSUS NATIONAL SOCIALISM …… 62

X.   THE UNION OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE …………………. 68

XI.   ACTS OF “AGGRESSION” BY GERMANY ……………… 79

XII.   THE DANCE OF DEATH ……………………………………… 85

XIII.   OUR FUTURE POLICY TOWARDS GERMANY ……. 93

XIV.   THE HITLER YOUTH MOVEMENT ……………………… 100

XV.   THE WINTER HELP ORGANIZATION ………………….. 104

XVI.   NATIONAL SOCIALISM AND THE PROTESTANT

CHURCH ……………………………………………………………………… 109

XVII. ECONOMICS …………………………………………………….. 118

XVIII. THE FOUR YEARS PLAN …………………………………… 138

XIX.   THE GERMAN COLONIES …………………………………. 141

XX.   THE LABOUR FRONT ………………………………………….. 146

XXI.   AGRICULTURE …………………………………………………. 155

XXII. MUNICH AND AFTER ………………………………………… 167

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

 

THE DANCE OF DEATH

 

 

We have recently developed a habit of holding public meetings to denounce the sins of our neighbours. On such occasions violent and exaggerated statements are made and the whole audience worked up to a condition of glorious indignation and intense moral satisfaction with themselves thanking God as the Pharisee in the Temple, that they are not as this Publican. I cannot find in the scriptures that Our Lord tells us to meet together to confess the sins of our brothers, instead of confessing our own sins, and we are especially warned not to pass judgment. We, like the village gossip, always assume the worst. What effect are such meetings likely to have in the countries which are denounced? We have recently had some experience owing to the German press having at last taken to hitting back, digging out some black passages in our past history, and describing them with the gross exaggeration customary in political propaganda. These attacks in the German press have produced a feeling of intense indignation here. We may criticise our own sins, but are not going to have any damned foreigner doing it for us. It is none of his business, we say. Curiously enough the Germans have just the same feeling about things we say about them, and so the piling up of ill feeling is growing on both sides every day.

It is generally admitted by serious students to-day that the war of 1914 had no legitimate cause, if any cause for war can be regarded as legitimate. There have been in the past economic wars, dynastic wars, religious wars and wars for the conquest of territory, but in 1914 the nations of Europe had no quarrel with each other, and the whole world was prospering and increasing in trade.

[Page 86]

It is true that we were very jealous of the rapid increase of the German export trade, and suspicious of the Fleet they were building although it was much less than half the size of our own, but I doubt if any merchant feeling the pinch of German competition in the world market would have regarded that competition as a justifiable reason for war.

The quarrel between Austria and Serbia could have been settled by reasonable negotiation between Austria and Russia without disturbing the rest of Europe. The only outcome of the war has been that millions of lives were thrown away, and a distracted Europe and an impoverished world left as the only tangible result.

Looking back on those years before the war, I realise that an insidious propaganda against Germany had been carried on for a long time, — why or by whom or with what intent I do not know, — which was gradually poisoning our minds. It is true Germany had the most powerful land army in the world, that the German Emperor had the gift of saying boastful and irritating things, and that there was a pan-German society which amused itself by drawing imaginary maps of a German European Empire. There had also been some trouble over the Agadir incident, when the German Emperor woke up to find that we had presented France with the whole of Morocco which did not belong to us; but there was no justification for saying that Germany meditated wars of conquest, and as an actual fact the German foreign office was in dread of the power of Russia.

What were the facts? Since the war of 1870, for which France and Germany were equally to blame, up to 1914 Germany had been at peace with all the world. We on the other hand had been constantly at war. We had invaded and conquered Egypt, we had made war on the Boers, we had fought in Africa and on the frontiers of India, and had annexed Burma. The gates of the temple of Janus had never been closed; yet we were firmly convinced that we were a peaceful non-aggressive people, and Germany an aggressive military nation.

[Page 87]

Now that no serious student of the events leading up to 1914 that the German government was to blame any more than any other European government including our own, this legend about an aggressive Germany is obviously false; yet it is still believed by many people in this country, and we are told that Hitler is the successor of the Kaiser, and aims at the military conquest of Europe. The last war was psychological, it had no basis on realities, and if there is another war in Europe it will also be psychological.

In the old days of mercenary armies in Europe, two kings might quarrel and let loose their armies on each other without troubling to consult the people, whose first knowledge that war had been declared was when soldiers of both sides began looting their farms. To-day, now that we have conscript armies, it is necessary for the government before it can declare war to rouse the peoples of two countries to such a hatred of each other, that decent Englishmen and decent Germans get out their rifles and try to kill each other. This is done by means of propaganda.

There are of course powerful interests in every country to whom war means big profits and who may be secretly engaged in financing. propaganda and, as I have shown elsewhere, the Socialists and Communists in Europe to-day are exerting every effort to set the four western powers at war; but this is not sufficient to explain the rapid spread of an infection over a country producing all the symptoms of mental rabies. The Press have no scruples about stimulating this mental intoxication if it sells a few more copies of the paper, and do not hesitate about publishing shocking lies, and using the poster to. excite the public.

The most serious danger to Peace is the utter want of any feeling of responsibility on the part of the British, French and American Press and wireless. Let me take a recent example.

The annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, by the German government, and the joining of Memel to the Reich, has caused considerable excitement in this country. It is therefore a time when those responsible for news should do their best to calm and not excite public imagination. The B.B.C. sent out a message that the German government had told the Lithuanian government that if they did not hand over Memel, German planes would bomb the capital of Lithuania, and that while the Lithuanian parliament was meeting, German bombing planes flew backwards and forwards overhead.

[Page 88]

There are poisons known to medicine which are called cumulative poisons. One drop will do no harm, but it remains in the body waiting for the next drop and the next and the next, until sufficient of the poison has accumulated to produce illness and death. The same is true of poisons to the mind. We read in the Press a lie about Germany, next day we read part of a speech denouncing Germany, on the Sunday we hear a sermon in which Germany is attacked. We pick up a magazine lying on the club table and there is an article abusing Germany. And so day by day and week by week and month by month this cumulative poison collects in our minds until the day comes when it produces a mental fever in which all sense of proportion is lost and we are controlled by the horrible delusion that it is our duty to go out and kill.

An interesting example of this occurred in the House of Commons the other day. The leader of the Labour party and the leader of the Liberal party, both accused Franco of having dropped from his planes chocolate boxes containing infernal machines to blow children to pieces. There is a well known morbid disease known as persecution mania which often results in the sufferer committing murder. Both these men have reached this dangerous mental condition. They will not have to commit the murder themselves, but will send other men out to kill and to be killed.

When once war has been declared, the governments of both sides take charge of the propaganda machine and pour out lies about the people on the other side in order to keep hatred at a killing point. Many will remember that during the first year of the war, it was decided by both sides on the French front to have a truce at Christmas with the result that the German and English soldiers got so friendly that if the higher command had not stopped it at once, they would have refused to go on killing each other. I remember the first time I visited France during the war. I went to the camouflage factory and was astounded to find that our officers liked the Germans and only began to use bad language when the Portuguese were mentioned. The hatred of the German which was felt in Great Britain did not extend to the fighting line. As I watched Chinese labourers, French peasant girls, German prisoners and English soldiers all working happily together I wondered what we were fighting about.

[Page 89]

It is also necessary, in order to keep the war fever at its height, to invent a slogan. Our slogan was that we were fighting to save democracy, — the victory of the allies having resulted in the abolition of parliament and the setting up of dictators in nearly every country in Europe.

I have during my life seen the nations of Europe hurled at each other’s throats in a meaningless slaughter by means of lying propaganda, and when I see the same thing going on to-day in an aggravated form, I confess I am very much afraid. The German people who have been carrying through a revolution against enormous odds, have doubtless done many things of which we cannot approve, but these things have not only been exaggerated out of all proportion, but have been successfully used to rouse the most dangerous and bloodthirsty of all human emotions, — moral indignation, and the church has been pressed into service in order to bring us nearer to war. Everywhere the gospel of hate is being preached in the Press and from the pulpit. We are told by those preaching this gospel that they have no hostility to the German people but only to the German government, the wicked Hitler and the dreadful Nazis. If that is true, surely the right way to go about it is to persuade the German people that our view and not their view is right. Surely a hatred of Hitler is not a reason for killing millions of Germans, and incidentally killing millions of Englishmen in the process. If war is declared against Germany, every German whatever his private opinions will line up behind Hitler to defend his fatherland, and after a furious and bloody war, nothing will have been settled and Europe ruined.

We are told that Hitler is going to do this and is going to do that; let us at any rate wait and see if he does do any of these things before we dream of plunging into war.

[Page 90]

The danger of the situation in this country is that good well-meaning people have got trapped by this propaganda and are beginning to think that the killing of Germans is a righteous and Christian act. If these people would go to Germany and visit some of the little German towns and wander about among the decent kindly people and say to themselves when they see a German workman returning to his home, “I am going to kill that man”, and a German mother sitting in a public garden with her children, “I am going to make her a widow, and I am going to drop bombs upon this town and set it blazing in flames with the tortured people dying in agony in the ruins”, all this in the name of the Christian religion, I believe they would go away shuddering at committing such devilry in the name of Christ.

When savage tribes wish to make war upon another tribe, they work their young men up to the killing point by means of war dances which produce the necessary mental intoxication. Our method to-day is more elaborate, but the object and the outcome is the same. The dance of death is getting wilder and wilder in this country, until nothing will satisfy us except a holocaust of blood.

It is obvious that the war propaganda in this country and in America, cannot be kept going without a large expenditure, and the investment of capital in buying up politicians, managing governments, and controlling the British and American Press. It is impossible to find out who really owns the big British dailies behind the scenes, but it is evident that most of them dare not publish anything but anti-German news. Probably the only really free press in England today, are the local weekly newspapers.

Those who handle large sums of money are the International financiers, who do not spend money for ideological reasons, but only to make more money. It was not till I read the story of the political activities of the great Jewish banking firm Kuhn Loeb and Co, and the way in which they controlled American Presidents, and financed the Japanese war against Russia, that I realised the connection between war and high finance, which is the polite name for money lending on a big scale.

[Page 91]

We cannot imagine our dear old orthodox British banks indulging in such unorthodox practices, but they pick up the crumbs which fall from the masters table. The profits are made in handling big loans, the general public finally holding the baby. Since the war, by means of propaganda, the American public have been persuaded to invest large sums in loans to bankrupt South American States, every penny of which has been lost, the financiers making their profit and clearing out.

We had a ramp in the cotton industry, organised by the “City”, which robbed the Lancashire workers of their savings and ruined the industry.

The richest field for plunder for the international financier, is war and rumours of war. Owing to the present bad temper among European nations, some five thousand millions, if we include the U.S.A., is being spent on armaments, with no control on profits here or in America, and most of the money is being borrowed, while war means the borrowing of huge sums by the government at high rates of interest. It is obvious then, that while war ruins nations, it is the best way in which high finance can make enormous profits, the burden of interest being born by future tax payers.

In the second place, as long as Germany and Italy are under their present governments, they will not touch foreign loans, and Germany by her method of internal economy and trading has eliminated the international financier, and those who make profits by playing with foreign exchanges. That is doubtless why the government is being forced by the “City” to start a trade war with Germany. If the economic methods devised by Germany are successful, and spread to other nations, and if Hitler succeeds in his policy of establishing permanent peace in Europe, the high financier will cease to be able to exist. It is therefore their main interest today to plunge the four powers into war, in order to destroy Germany and Italy. Having failed in September to start Europe fighting over a time table, they are now trying to bring in the U.S.A., which has already begun a trade war against Germany. It would be interesting to know the real origin of Roosevelt’s outburst about defending “Christianity, democracy and international good faith”. Who pulled the strings and sat grinning in his bank parlour in New York?

[Page 92]

The organisation of mass propaganda here and in the U.S.A., by financial groups, means the end of democracy, which is based on the free expression of opinion and putting both sides before the people. Not only is the Press and the B.B.C. controlled, but the House of Commons itself is being intimidated, as the Members of Parliament fear their constituents whose minds have been poisoned by mass propaganda. There are many Members of Parliament opposed to our hostility to Germany, but they are afraid to speak in the House.

In fact, we have reached the extraordinary position in this “free and democratic” country, that the only place where a fearless discussion is possible and takes place, is in the House of Lords, where the members separated by their exalted position from the tyranny of machine-made democratic opinion, can speak freely what they believe, and excellent speeches are made opposing our hostility to Germany.

Freedom of speech, a high level of intelligence, and a genuine desire for the public good, apart from the low motives of political life, has deserted the House of Commons, and taken refuge in the House of Lords.

Once their propaganda has been successful, the governments of democratic countries have to yield as our Government has yielded to the outcry about the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia. Only Hitler and Mussolini are strong enough to say No and will keep the peace unless we and France compel them to draw the sword. Unfortunately in this country the “City” pulls the strings, and while our young men will be fighting and dying under the delusion that they were defending Christianity and democracy, they would really be fighting to rake profits for the international financiers.

The vultures of finance gorge on war and rumours of war, and millions of lives are sacrificed to fill their money chests.

[Page 93]

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

 

OUR FUTURE POLICY

 

 

TOWARDS GERMANY

 

 

The Peace Pact having been signed with Germany, and the German people in Central Europe having accomplished their union under one Reich, with the exception of one minor area, Danzig, the question before the people of this country is what is to be our policy towards Germany in the future.

We must agree that it has not been a wise policy in the past. While on the one hand admitting that the conditions forced on them by the Treaty of Versailles were unfair and would have to be revised, on the other hand instead of arranging with them that the revisal be done by agreement, we have protested against every step they took in this direction. Why could we not have done what we did in the case of Turkey in agreeing to the fortification of the Dardanelles? — a matter much more vital to us than anything happening in Central Europe. Either we could have adopted the policy of the Opposition, said No, and been prepared to back our No with war if necessary, or we could have agreed to the revisal by mutual consent.

Mr. Chamberlain in arranging for a conference of the four Powers to settle the Sudeten German problem, has adopted the policy which we should have adopted from the beginning. The Sudeten German question differed from anything that had happened before, as up to that time Germany had been engaged in internal re-organization and in completing, by the union — with Austria, the policy begun by Bismarck, — a policy which was entirely their own affair. The problem of Sudeten Germany was the first to involve the interests of another state, and was further complicated by the alliance between CzechoSlovakia and France. Germany was therefore quite right in accepting the offer to settle the matter by agreement according to the promise made by Hitler in his speech of March 7th 1936.

[Page 94]

Mr. Chamberlain having initiated this new policy of consultation among the four Powers on any point of disagreement, it is all the more necessary to define our attitude towards Germany.

In order to be able to do this, we must begin by considering what are the vital necessities of the German people, and whether there is any reason why we should oppose them. In considering this question we must put on one side our democratic sentiments, and our disapproval of some of the things the German Government have done within their own country, and look into the question on a purely business basis from the point of view of our Imperial interests.

To deal first with the needs of the German people. There are 80 million Germans living on a small area in Europe with a comparatively poor soil, who cannot like the French obtain all the food they want from the fertile soil of their own country. It is therefore evident that they must either be satisfied with a very low standard of comfort and an underfed population, or develop external trade, or undertake military conquest of new territory.

In spite of the alarm of the Opposition, we may dismiss the idea that Germany is meditating ventures of military conquest. Such a policy must result in ruin and disaster, and though partly successful would not improve her economic position. Even if Hitler is the military filibuster which the Opposition foolishly imagine him to be, we may take it for granted that the average German citizen would rather trade than fight. The days of military conquest and subjugation of other nations in Europe are over, as there is no genuine economic advantage to be obtained from it. This is clearly perceived by the German people and in course of time will doubtless be understood by our own politicians who in this matter are mentally behind the times.

[Page 95]

The only alternative therefore is extended trade, and Germany is making every effort she can to carry out this policy. While trading with any and every nation, she has looked round the world to see whether there is any region open to her which is economically undeveloped and which would supply her with the raw materials she requires. Putting on one side for a time her claim for colonies, and realising the importance of doing nothing to arouse the jealousy and suspicion of Great Britain, she has agreed to a strict limitation of her fleet, and is looking for a development of trade on land areas.

If we look at the map of Europe, we shall recognise that the. obvious direction for her trade expansion is in the countries situated on the Danube and beyond that the Balkans and Turkey, along the lines of the old overland trade route from Asia to Europe. She has already developed a considerable trade with the states on the Danube and with the Balkan states, and is projecting a great canal taking ships up to 1500 tons to connect the Rhine with the Danube.

There can be no question that there are great possibilities of development in these economically backward countries, and that Germany will be of the greatest assistance to them, enabling them to take advantage of modern scientific methods of production.

Although she has been compelled by her economic position to enter into special trade agreements, she is not attempting to claim any monopoly and if she is successful in developing these countries economically, we shall reap some of the benefits. Surely with our world trade and vast Empire, we can allow Germany to cultivate this garden lying at her door. Doubtless these countries will be included in the German “sphere of influence”, whatever that may mean. I cannot see that this is any business of ours, as no vital interests of the British Empire can be affected by the development of trade in the central parts of Europe. It is the right of every nation to adopt the form of government they prefer, and we have no more right to try and compel nations to adopt our political theories by acts of war than the Roman Catholic Church has the right to crush Protestantism by promoting war in Europe. We are a business people engaged in world trade and, avoiding all ideologies, we must look at the whole question from a purely business point of view. To repeat the famous phrase of Bismarck with a difference. — The whole of the Balkans is not worth the life of one British soldier. Surely possessing the world and the fatness thereof, we need not grudge her this line of development.

[Page 96]

There are rumours that the Soviet is breaking up and that the next great national movement is going to be in the Ukraine which formed an independent republic after the war and was afterwards massacred into submission by the Soviet. The Ukrainians in Poland who have been badly treated by the Poles are demanding Home Rule, and the Ukrainians in CzechoSlovakia are evidently in a restless condition. The Ukraine includes the black soil wheat area of Russia on the Dneiper, and could supply unlimited wheat to Germany in return for manufactured goods and will naturally enter into close relations with Germany who will be her natural protectors against the Soviet. Therefore if once an independent Ukraine republic was established and entered into friendly relations with Germany, we should be glad that the essential needs of Germany for raw materials had been satisfied. To quote Hitler:

 “A nation which is satisfied and well fed is more likely to keep the peace than a nation which is dissatisfied and hungry.”

Ah, our Opposition will reply, but Germany will be exercising throughout all these regions that vague and mysterious thing called a sphere of influence. As long as they are exercising a sphere of influence results in these nations being contented and well supplied with goods, and therefore secures the peace of Europe, why should we object, and oppose these natural developments which are inevitable because they are based upon the facts of geography. The answer is there is no alternative plan except to make war on the German people and reduce them to such desperate impoverishment and slaughter of so many of their youth, that they are again brought to their condition after the thirty years war and will require a century to recover. Mr. Lloyd George says we can crush them like an eggshell. He would find the eggshell made of tempered steel.

I have searched the pages of Hansard containing the speeches of the Opposition in the recent debate on a vote of censure against the Government’s foreign policy, with a view to finding out what is their alternative policy to the one advocated by Mr. Chamberlain. This alternative policy was given by Mr. Dalton and is worthy of quotation in full.

[Page 97]

“There is once more a possibility, it may not last much longer. There is still one more chance for British diplomacy to bring together into an effective combination all those nations in the East of Europe who are threatened by this German push to the East. They are still there a potential combination, the Soviet Union, Poland, Rumania, Yugo-Slavia, Turkey and Greece. They are all members of the League of Nations, to which we and France still belong. You have still there a potential formidable force if it could be welded together for peace and for organised resistance to further endeavours to dislocate Europe.”

It is unfortunate that men in the responsible position of leaders of the Labour party should be so ignorant of the real situation in Europe to-day. Germany far from dislocating Europe is consolidating Europe by helping to adjust the injustices caused by the peace treaties, and has no intention of threatening any of these countries with aggression. France who has signed a peace pact with Germany and is anxious to develop her trade relations with her, would not support the Labour policy, and the Soviet is too busy with internal affairs and with Japan, to indulge in the venture of a European war at the call of our Labour party. When Mr. Dalton’s delegate called on the governments of Poland, Rumania, Yugo-Slavia, Turkey and Greece, they would receive his proposals with astonishment, and tell him that they were much too busy making profitable trade agreements with Germany.

Mr. Dalton had great hopes of the new Prime Minister of Hungary. If he had listened over the wireless the other day he would have heard the Prime Minister saying that the closest bonds of friendship united Hungary to Germany and Italy, because they would be for ever grateful to them for enabling them to recover their stolen territories from Czecho-Slovakia.

Our policy in Europe in the past has been called securing “the balance of power” which meant that if ever we thought one nation in Europe was getting more powerful than the other nations we made it our business to promote war against that nation, and to support war when it came with our money bags, our fleet and expeditionary forces.

[Page 98]

This policy is openly advocated by Mr. Ramsay Muir who glories in the days of Marlborough and Wellington, and wishes to see them come back again. There can be no question that this policy of the past has cost Europe millions of lives on a hundred battle-fields. We not only promoted wars but when war had once begun supported its continuance with our money bags until the war to quote Mr. Lloyd George was “fought to a finish”, with the result that it ended probably in an unjust treaty which opened the door to future wars.

Can anyone doubt now that if we had adopted Lord Lansdowne’s policy in 1917, and made peace with Germany then, we should have saved all the dangers and difficulties of the last twenty years.

To my mind the policy of the Balance of Power is a damnable policy. We have been in the past the evil genius of Europe. It is surely evident that if the policy of the Opposition was adopted, and could be successfully carried out, blocking Germany’s natural trade expansion in the Danube basin and in the Balkans, the German people confined to a limited area with no hope of commercial development, would be compelled to fight in order to live. The choice therefore is between Mr. Chamberlain’s policy of allowing Germany a free area for commercial expansion, or war — a war in which Germany would be fighting for her life.

The maddest of all nightmares from which the Opposition suffer, is that Germany would attempt a military conquest of the Ukraine. Either she would have to march six hundred miles across Polish territory, to which Poland would naturally object, or if she marched through Czecho-Slovakia would find herself lost in the Carpathian mountains, with no railways or roads, and would still have to violate either Rumanian or Polish territory. The one thing that would save the Soviet, if it is true that it is breaking up, would be an external attack.

The difficulty that Germany and Italy find in dealing with democracies, is that they have no continuity of foreign policy, and therefore States with a stable form of government and a continuity of foreign policy have to be very cautious in their approach to France and Great Britain. France, where the members of the Cabinet are paid their salaries weekly, and Great Britain, where the old policy of continuity of foreign Policy has been abandoned for the pursuit of opposite policies by the Government and the Opposition.

[Page 99]

Since the peace pact with Germany was signed, there has been an outburst of attack on Germany, which started before the new decrees against the Jews, in the Press, by politicians, and from the pulpit, and Germany is naturally anxiously watching to see whether the next election will return the parties of the Left to power, who would denounce the treaty with Italy, and seek for some pretext to declare war on her.

In every capital in Europe, the triumph of the parties of the Left in this country at the next election, would be taken as the red signal for war.

[Page 100]

 

 

 

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