SIR PHILIP GIBBS SURVEYS THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

SIR PHILIP GIBBS SURVEYS THE WORLD

A Wise, Dispassionate Study

"Across the Frontiers," by Philip Gibbs (London: Joseph).

Twenty years after the making of peace in Europe, with much wisdom gained and judgment sharpened by first-hand experience, Sir Philip Gibbs dispassionately surveys the uneasy world. He is eminently fitted to do so. lie has been everywhere in Europe, he knows most people of importance and can represent their views, and, most important of all, he has mixed with the common people also and knows their opinions as well as he does those, of their leaders. It is this in particular that gives his book its high standing and a ring of truth frequently absent in the work of foreign correspondents who have never strayed from the dwelling place of officialdom.

Sir Philip begins with a general survey of the situation, though even here he finds space to particularise, and to record significant conversations. He discusses first the depressing lack of any assurance of peace in the world to-day, and seeks a reason for “all this fearful talk of another war not far ahead.” He describes the race to arms and how it has come about that the expenditure of the world on munitions is now double that of the year 1913 when the great Powers were arming to the teeth. He has much of interest to say about the menace in the East —both the Far East and the Near—and about Mussolini’s foreign policy, and Britain’s also. For its power to shock British complacency, and as evidence in favour of 'the charge of hyprocrisy frequently made against Britain by other countries, the following remarks addressed to Sir Philip by a highly intellectual Austrian woman are ■worth quoting

"You English,” she said, in a discussion about the state of the world, “are, of course, the Japanese of the West. . . . You are very patient. Everybody imagines for a time that you are abandoning your old ways, and becoming gentle and peace-loving. You delude the world Into the belief that you have been converted to pacifism, and that the old lion has become lamb-like! Then suddenly something happens which challenges your interests or your power. Then you are merciless! Then you are ruthless! You do things which shock the conscience of humanity—and are encrusted in your selfconceit and say it is your moral right. ‘We are maintaining justice,’ you say; ‘we are defending liberty and democracy,’ you say. It was so in Ireland with your Black-and-Tans. It is now in Palestine with your shooting of the Arabs who are

trying to defend their land and liberties. The other day because an Arab community would not betray the young men who had destroyed one of your aerodromes, you put marks on to a number of Arab houses and let it be known that you would destroy them one by one until the young men were denounced. They were not denounced. You- destroyed those houses one by one. Then you criticise the atrocities of Mussolini in Abyssinia! There is in the English character a fanatical sense of self-righteousness, and in that belief you are ruthless of pity,, mercy, and gentle qualities. You are like the Japanese.”

Sir Philip’s survey does not take him over ground that will be new to readers of other commentaries on the European situation, but it has many qualities which give it distinction. There is a brilliant summing-up of the causes leading to the breakdown of the League, and a lively portrayal of the new Germany, in which Sir Philip, while holding no brief for the dictatorship regime, finds much to admire and makes some ueat points. One occurs in his story of his inspection of the admirable social service organisation, the Winter Hilfe, which operates in Germany as a nation-wide system. His guide spoke with horror of the conditions in England, which allowed young people homeless in London to ' sledp miserably in the open and live >n squalor. He asked:

“Why donlt you put them into, labour camps where they would get fit and learn to use a spade and handle the’earth, and do decent work which would give them self-respect?” That is what we should do, but our tradition of “liberty” does not allow uh to •conscript youth, eVen to rescue them , from vice, and a criminal way of life, and the loss of their souls. Perhaps we make a fttish sometimes of liberty, and. worship an illusion; for where is the liberty of a working mother with a family in one room? What good is a liberty which leads to C 3 bodies, and produces an enormous population of mental defectives or young criminals?

Writing with moderation and detachment, Sir- Philip carries conviction in all he says. He has selected his material with discrimination and his comments are precise and unbiased. He has written a book which should appeal greatly to the average man and woman wanting information about affairs in Europe, the affairs of the ordinary citizens as much as those of the States themselves.