Political Contrasts

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 105, 27 January 1940, Page 15

Political Contrasts

“Nothing illumines more brilliantly,” said Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a recent speech, “the difference between our political system and the Nazi political system than the contrast between the responses from our colonies and the responses which came from the German ‘protectorates.’ “Germany had expressed herself solicitous for the welfare of her subject peoples, but no message of support or encouragement was sent to Berlin from the Austrians. There were no glad resolutions of congratulation and comradeship sent to Hitler by the Czechs, and there were no demonstrations of solidarity with the Reich by the Slovaks. “Those peoples remained silent and sullen. M’hy? Because they felt the heel of the tyrant which had stamped out their freedom.

“M’hy did our fellow-citizens in our Colonial Empire feel so different? Because they know that we respect them absolutely. M’e are solicitous for the good individual characteristics and ways of life, and every tribal or racial or national community within the British Empire, shall be preserved. They know that so long as they are associated with British rule so their wellbeing and freedom will be steadily developed.

“People who spoke of British Imperialism as Ribbentrop did were like Rip van Winkles who had been asleep for a generation and, waking up, start gibbering about a British Imperialism which, if it ever existed at all, has certainly been stone dead for many a year.”