BRITAIN’S PLACE IN EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 106, 28 January 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

BRITAIN’S PLACE IN EUROPE

A Provocative, Noisy Book

“Can Chamberlain Save Britain? by Collin Brooks (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode). The style of this book is reminiscent of the style once so often adopted‘by those vehement Irishmen before they got Home Rule. Most of it is written En Haute Voix, and far too much ot it is devoted to a condemnation ot Anthony Eden in his role of I'oreigu Secretary. There is too much special pleading —too much, if not approbation of the German point of view, at least too friendly appreciation; too little realization of the diplomacy and the present relative position of the British point of view in international affairs. It is very right and proper that the country should realize that it must be strong in arms, indeed far strongei than she ever has been before. It is also very right that the people should realize that, in order to reach this necessary strength, there may be no en largement, in the meantime, of social services. Indeed, it may also be wise that they should realize what are the personal brutalities that go under Nazi and under Fascist rule. This should be explained in detail—as realistically as possible, so that all may understand that the way may have to be harder than it is at present if these two tyrannies are to be avoided. In other words, it must be driven borne to the people that liberty as the Briton knows it is not to be held by treading any primrose path. Mr. Brooks allows nothing to the imagination or common sense of the Englishman. He sees only the highest degree of national efficiency in those nations revolving round the Berlin-Rome-Tokio axis. He sees only clumsy inefficiency in the democratic system. In a great many statements that he makes as facts, he is not 'always on sure ground. Many of his assumptions are pure special pleading. He says that, during the last crisis, Germany was ready for war and Britain was not. It is strange that, witli Germany bent on revenge for her defeat in the Great War, she hesitated to strike at the behest of a weakened nation, which, one infers from Mr. Brooks, she could have defeated, and tluit nation the one country she m'ost desired to humiliate. If the Berlin-Rome-Tokio axis was so strong, and, as a result of Mr. Eden’s ineptitude, England was so weak and friendless, surely Der Tag had arrived! Mr. Brooks makes little or no comment on the fact that the Germans were as a people, loth for war, and that Italy was an uncertain starter. He spoils his argument by overstatement. “Our total unprepareduess for war has been so mercilessly exposed.” “It (trade variation) is driving us now at a quick pace towards the rocks of national bankruptcy.” Dealing with old England for her “immoral” seizures of territory through the ages, he says: “From the French were taken India and Canada, from the Dutch parts of Africa and Australasia. China, at the mouth of the cannon, was compelled to open special treaty ports that Britain might trade in opium and other desirables.” These are but a very few of the lopsided statements running through the book. The author, too, relies on the allegation that Germany agreed to an armistice on November 11, 1918, on the express bargain that she would not lose her colonies! Germany was beaten to her knees and was unable to withstand the allied onslaught or to insist on terms. The Armistice was, in reality, a surrender, and Germany knew the position well enough. One important omission that Mr. Brooks makes it that the reigns of dictators are necessarily short, built on emotion, and that appeal to a people ultimately fails. The definite preparations for war by Germany are no doubt correct; then Mr. Brooks’s remarks upon the need for a small Parliamentary committee in control sb as to avoid the delays associated with the full Parliamentary routifie are useful and interesting, though one knows, in crises, such a committee or inner cabinet is always, in fact, formed. \ So far as his elaborate condemnation of Anthony Eden is concerned, it can be said that the great majority of the British people agree that he was unfit for the formidable task with which he was confronted. His incompetence could have been stated much less scathingly, and more effectively, than as appears in this book. The author finds ample justification for the Italian attack on Abyssinia, and for the Japanese attack on the Chinese, The casus belli in each case _was the killing of an official. The good that lies in this book is the revelation of Britain’s need for more armaments, and the interesting argument concerning the return of the German colonies for the sake of preserving the peace. The whole is an alarming book —full of depressing forebodings—but-one can recover one’s balance when one realizes that the book is, in general, too extreme and too noisy. One other weakness in this book Ought to be noticed, and it is that the author ignores the Imperial bond of strength. That that strength comes from all quarters of the globe, and from peoples bound by the tie of blood to England, is a matter which cannot be overlooked when considering the preparedness of the British people for war. The Empire is a whole, and though some units may be backward in thin defence measures, the whole is strong.

STORY OF A RUSSIAN EXILE

“Refuge in England,” by Vera Larina (London: G. Beil and Sons).

“Refuge in England” is a delightful autobiography of a Russian girl of noble birth, born a few years before the Great War. As a child, Vera Larina remembers the- peaceful domestic life in Petrograd, and later, the earlier stages of the dreaded revolution; as a woman she becomes a happy exile in a new country abounding in wonders and “barbarisms.”

Vera Larina and her family leave Russia soon after the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution, her father deciding to settle in England, and It is only after much delay and trouble that London is finally reached. The whole family find this new life barbaric and uncouth after the richly civilized life of old Russia. Their first winter, spent in a small provincial town, is very miserable and unhappy, but the little girl finds happiness again when they move to Newcastle and she attends a school full of kindness and cheer. Still another move is contemplated, this time to Canada, but the difficulties are insuperable, and once again the provinces give them their home. Finally, work in London offers a the great city becomes “home” nt hist to the weary exiles. This novel is a story typical of what many'Russian exiles must have suffered. ft is written with the utmost charm and simplicity by a young woman who has no pretence to literary hurt