GERMANY'S CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 9

GERMANY'S CLAIM

RETURN OF COLONIES

VARIOUS ARGUMENTS

ATTACKED

TRADE & MIGRATION

The W.E.A. class in Current History, met at the Trades Hall on Wednesday night, when Dr. A. G. Butchers delivered a lecture on Germany's claim for the return of her former colonies.

When the whole world was armed to the teeth, said Dr. Butchers, in fear of what the dictator-governed countries would do or demand next, the major consideration for all was security in defence. When war might break out at any moment, Germany was demanding the return of strategically important territories with threats as to what might happen to the peace of the world if they were not returned. Germany's schemes of expansion had envisaged not only a German Mittel-Europa from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and extending to the Persian Gulf, but a Mittel-Afrika from the Atlantic to thej Indian Ocean and including—if she had been successful in the Great War—the French and Belgian Congo, and ' the British and Portuguese African col-1 onies. Both Portugal and * Belgium | were well aware —even before the war • —that the- ultimate disposal, of their African colonies had been discussed between Germany and other Powers.

IF THE ALLIES HAD LOST.

As to the Treaty of Versailles, what conditions of peace might the Allies have expected had they been defeated? The Treaty of Brest-LUovsk imposed by Germany on Russia supplied the answer. Without doubt, France, Britain, Portugal, and Belgium would-have had to surrender their African colonies (not to mention the rest of the British Empire) and the allied Balkan and Mediterranean Powers and Russia as much of their territories as Germany required for her Berlin-to-Bagdad scheme of expansion. The disarmament of Britain and France would have been not less complete than that imposed on Germany, and the war indemnities exacted not one penny less than those Germany was required to pay. There would have been no League of Nations. And did anyone in his senses imagine that within twenty years of her victory Germany would have allowed Britain and France to tear up page after page of. the Treaty embodying the dictated terms of peace, to repudiate all their engagements, to re-arm beyond anything ever previously conceived of; and that Germany would complacently consider a request from them for the return of their (former colonies?

SMUTS ON GERMAN AIMS,

General Smuts was right when he said, "German colonial aims are not really colonial, but are dominated by far-reaching conceptions of world politics. Not colonies, but military power and strategic position for exercising world power in future are her real aims." Consequently he denned the British war aims as including "the destruction of the German colonial system, with a view to the future security of all communications vital to the British Empire" and proposed at the Pear.c Conference that because of the menace ■which the possession of submarine bases in many parts of the world would necessarily constitute to the freedom and security of all nations . .j,,.,. in no circumstances should any of the German colonies be restored to Germany." With war threatening at any moment these considerations were even more important today. _ TREATY VIOLATION NOW THE KTJLE, The unashamed disregard of treaty obligations, begun with the German violation of Belgian neutrality in 1914, had become the rule in international affairs as far as the three Fascist States of Germany, Italy, and Japan ■were concerned. Whereas democratic nations regarded treaties as covenants binding for'the future until modified by mutual agreement of the parties, these States appeared to regard them merely as documents registering aj) existing situation, and as involving no future obligation whatever, should circumstances arise which in their opinion made it expedient for them unilsterally to denounce their pledges. No reliance could be placed in treaties made with these Powers, but their tremendous war preparations made the surrender of strategic territories and the consequent weakening of the defensive security of the theatened nations unthinkable. Eor example, a German submarine ba.se on the coast of Tanganyika would control a 4000----mile arc in the Indian j Ocean. South Africa could not tolerate such a possibility any more than Britain herself. Nor could Australia or New Zealand agree to allow a Gerfaany allied to Japan to regain a footing in the Pacific. ■ ,

COLONIES ABSOLUTELY RENOUNCED.

But apart from -hese considerations the German claim would not hold water for a moment. In the first place for Germany still to refer to these territories as if she had any continuing property or rights in them was •without justification. They were absolutely renounced and ceded by her, not to the League of Nations, which did not exist at the time arid in any case owned no territory whatever; but to the victorious nations, to distribute according to their own agreement arrived at amongst themselves. It would be just as logical and legal for France to demand the return of Quebec as for Germany to demand the return of Tanganyika.

AN UNTENABLE ARGUMENT.

The argument that Germany required these territories as markets was equally untenable. In the year before the Great War the trade between Germany and all her colonies put together amounted to only I per cent, of her total external trade. Moreover, although she had cut loose from the League of Nations and thereby forfeited her right to trade with the Mandated Territories on equal terms •with League States, the mandatory Powers had not discriminated against her. In British Cameroon, for example, in 1934, no less than 42.5 per cent, of the import trade and 79.8 per cent, of the export trade was with Germany. The annual value both of, the import and of the export trade between Germany and her former East African Colony (now the mandated territory of Tanganyika) for the past four years had exceeded one million pounds sterling per annum. As Sir Samuel Hoare put it, "There is no question of any colony withholding its raw materials from any prospective customer," and the only barrier to German trade was her own inability to buy unless at the same time she sold to the country concerned goods of equivalent value. A nation that diverted from the purposes of peaceful development and progress to the building up of a vast war machine the whole of her resources in labour, materials, and finance could not expect other nations to assist her in such a policy by continuing to extend financial credits and preferential trading concessions. If Germany chose to adopt a policy of internal inflation

in order to starve herself in respect of the standard of living of her people, for the purpose of increasing her threat to the peace of her neighbours, surely they must take note of that fact.

FORMER ADMINISTRATION.

Suppose Germany regained her lost colonies. Would she observe the principles of trusteeship which the allies imposed on themselves when they agreed to govern them under the supervision of the League of Nations Mandates Commission? Apart from strategic considerations, this was the crux of the whole, position. If her former record of administration was any guide she would not regard the interests of the natives as the paramount consideration; for in a period of only three years she had in SouthWest Africa reduced the native population from 200,000 to 82,000. Nothing could justify handing the natives back to such a fate. Would-Germany observe the principle of the open door in trade, and if she did how could she buy from these territories more than she could buy under existing conditions? Was it not more probable that she would simply include them within her national self-sufficiency scheme, and divert both their natural resources and their man-power to the purposes of her "guns-before-butter" policy?

MIGRATION ARGUMENT

CRITICISED

As far as the migration argument was concerned, the facts showed thai in the ten years before the war tha average annual emigration from Germany to the whole of the German colonies was only about forty persons. This did not mean that Germans were not leaving Germany. It only meant that of her\ total number of emigrants only one-six-hundredth part emigrated to the German colonies; and at the time when the colonies wei'e taken from her the total German populatibn in the whole of them was only about 23,000 persons. The simple truth was that the former German colonies were "not suitable for any large-scale European settlement.

Finally, said Dr. Butchers, in view of recent treaty repudiations, who could say that Germany would be content with the return even of all the colonies? A thousand years ago England learned to her cost-the meaning and value of Danegeld. What would, the next demand be? Would it be Alsace-Lorraine or the Polish Corridor or the Ukraine? World peace would never come that way, and in the circumstances, regrettable as it might be, there seemed nothing for it but full and complete re-armament, because the totalitarian Powers respected nothing, but force. The subject of next "week's study will be "Russia Under Stalin."