BRITAIN & EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 8

BRITAIN & EUROPE

THE ECONOMIC TIES

SIGNIFICANCE OF CRISIS

WISH FOR STABILITY

Sir Alfred Zimmern, Professor of International Relationships at Oxford University, in an address on Czechoslovakia to members of the Constitutional Association in Sydney, said that the argument that Europe was a good place to do business with, but a bad place to meddle in politically, was no longer valid, says the "Sydney Morning Herald." "The moment . Germany re-armed and became once more a great Power," he said, "the question arose whether Great Britain had an interest in preventing Germany from exercising a hegemony over the entire Continent. That is what we are up against today. "It is obvious that the decision that British statesmen are facing is whether tb take an interest in Central and Eastern Europe as permanent as that which they have always taken in France, Belgium,, and HoUand," Sir Alfred Zimmern said. "We have evaded that question for a long time. Now we have to say 'yes' or 'no' to the question whether the whole might of Britain will bemused in certain circumstances to prevent the extension of German power over the whole of Europe." Sir Alfred Zimmern added that, wih the meagre details available, it would be unwise to comment on .the reported decision of the British and French Governments. One comment, however, was in order. When the Kellogg Pact was framed, many people wondered what was the meaning of the phrase, "War as an instrument of policy." Now, one had only to watch what was going on in Europe to realise its meaning. There was a classical example of the use of war and the threat of war to compel nations to accept certain policies. VERSAILLES SETTLEMENT. There was a great deal of misconception about the effects of the Versailles settlement, Sir Alfred • Zimmern continued. Some people thought that it had turned Europe into a crazy quilt, and that the present trouble was the result. That was absolutely against the facts. The bad parts of the Peace Treaty, in fact were the parts that it did not contain. It did not deal with the economic situation, and the reparations agreement was very much muddled. But, oh its political side, the Peace Treaty was infinitely better than the Europe of 1914. Up till -then, the autocratic Powers were dominant, and miUions of people were living under Governments that they detested. The Polish people, for example, were simply dismembered. When Poland was again put on the map it was inevitable that Germany should be humilitated, because of the age-long struggle of the Germans against the Slavs, whom they regarded as colonials of the lowest order. It was a mistake to think that the "Big Three" in 1919 could have made a peace that would not have humiliated Germany. The settlement made favoured the European minorities; it was on the basis of peoples controlling their OAvn destinies. Many of those peoples had not managed very well to stand alone. They might have stood up better with econmoic help in the early days, but the fact remained that they were there, and that there could be no peace in Europe until its peoples were firmly set on their feet, "You won't get anywhere by sanctioning a German or Russian hegemony," Sir Alfred Zimmern continued, "it you want a stable Europe, it must be a Europe in which the rights of nations, great and small, are safeguarded. "Britain's interest in Europe is direct in'the economic sense. We can't live on Ottawa alone. We have immense trade interests in Europe, and when Europe is settled we are prospreous. But when Europe is unsettled Great Britain has vast unemployment, and there is a chronic state of crisis." CLAIMS OF MINORITIES. Sir Alfred Zimmern said that little importance should be attached to the claims against Czechoslovakia on behalf of Polish and Hungarian minorities. The Polish grievance was very small. It related to a small group of about 80,000 Poles living in Teschen, a mining area on the borders of Poland and Czechoslovakia. > There had been some contest when the frontiers were drawn, but the area had been assigned to Czechoslovakia, with provision for a plebiscite. Neither the Polish nor the Czech Government wanted a plebiscite at that time, so the Czechs got most of the area by negotiation. It might be that the frontier would be revised, .but it. was a very small thing in the relations between the two countries. The major interest of the Poles was that Germany should not become supreme over that area. The Hungarian case was similar. The areas predominantly inhabited by Hungarians were larger than the small Polish area, but the Czechoslovak Government, he believed, had been ready at any time in the last ten years or more to redefine the frontiers, provided the Hungarians would take that as a final settlemen.t Two or three towns and a few hundred thousand people would be transferred. But the Hungarian Government until recently had not abandoned the dream of a Greater Hungary. The rise of German power had now made that Greater Hungary inconceivable, and this gave Czechoslovakia and Hungary a chance to come closer together. Sir Alfred Zimmern added that it seemed to be forgotten that a treaty existed for the protection of minorities. Through it Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other States agreed to refer minority grievances to the Council of the League of Nations, but no Czechoslovak matter had ever been brought up. The League practice was that, when any abuse was alleged, a copy was sent to the Government whose conduct was arraigned. In every case, grievances against Czechoslovakia had been put right by the Government of that country. That was a direct answer to Herr Hitler's allegations that Germans in Czechoslovakia suffered from intolerable grievances, FIVE CENTURIES OLD. The Bohemian -frontier that was being discussed was a historic frontier, with a history of at least 500 years. People living within it had lived together for hundreds of years. He had been told that a priest had examined 35,000 pedigrees, going back to the fifteenth century, and had found only about six that were purely German. "We have never, in our history, guararanteed an inland Power," Sir Alfred Zimmern said, referring to British strategy. 2 "We have always limited our commitments to parts ■ where our sea power could operate. Today, in' the short distance, Britain is weak. • She has no expeditionary force or army of the Continental type. But in the long distance we are terrifically strong, because of the tremendous extent of our natural re-, sources. Compare, for example, the mineral resources of the British Empire with the natural resources ofj Germany. Hitler would not be shaking his fist today if he ha£ ¥12$ ij£rj

ported vast quantities of nickel from the Canadian mines.

"If there is a struggle between freedom and tyranny, it will involve a considerable revision of our conceptions of economic policy. The dictatorship countries have made trade an annexe of militarism; their trade operations have become strategic operations. That represents an element in the strength of the free peoples that we should have always at the back of our minds. We hear a lot about 'haves' and 'havenots,' but the truth is that the free countries possess their resources because enterprise and initiative flourish best under freedom.

"Thus if we are all forced to stand together for freedom, the weapons we shall use will not be only, or mainly, th 6 old military weapons. They will also be. economic weapons, and this is a matter in which you in Australia have a very; direct. interest"