Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1939. AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 43, 19 August 1939, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1939. AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

Is there any doubt still where Britain stands in this last-minute crisis in Europe? It is hard to think, after all that has been said and done, that there could be any. Yet voices are heard even now say-

ing not only in private, but in public, that there will be no war, that Danzig will be another Munich, and that Poland will go the way of Czecho-Slovakia without a struggle. How anybody could read the news to that effect passes the comprehension of all but a few. There is absolutely nothing to suggest it in the actual messages received and published from the scene of tension. The Poles are in no mood to yield their rights at the point of the pistol, and Britain and France are pledged to the utmost to defend Poland in event of any attack on her independence which she is prepared to resist with her national forces. Words could go no further, but it is said in these latter days that words do not count for much, actions speaking louder, and that pledges are made only to be broken. It is true of pledges, but only in the case of Germany and Italy. Neither France nor Britain has broken any

oral or written guarantee given to any nation. In the case of Czechoslovakia there was no guarantee by Britain of defence, and the pledge broken was that given to Mr. Chamberlain by Herr Hitler at Munich that Germany, after having attached Sudetenland in full measure and beyond, would respect the independence of the defenceless core of Czecho-Slovakia that remained. Had Mr. Chamberlain thought that by the Munich Agreement Czechoslovakia would lose her independence, it is .certain that, despite the risk of war, he would never have consented to urge the course of action on Czecho-Slovakia that emerged from Munich. If Munich was a mistake in the fact of trusting in the word of honour of the head j of a great European nation, it was an honest mistake. Englishmen do not make such mistakes twice. Once deceived they trust no more, and this is where Herr Hitler makes his own far graver error of believing that he who has yielded once will yield again. There is no need at this late hour, with the issue of peace or w Tar hanging in the balance, to discuss the past in detail. The essence of British policy over the last year or two was made admirably clear in an outstanding speech in the House of Representatives on Thursday night .by Mr. F. W. Schramm, a Labour member, in reply to speeches of his own colleagues attacking Mr. Chamberlain and his policy. Nothing had occurred in Europe, Asia, or Africa, said Mr. Schramm, to justify Britain's going to war. It was much better to be prepared to fight in a just cause than to be drawn in on side issues. Britain today is the leader of the group of nations bound by the,, ties of peace and liberty to defend themselves and their neighbours

against any further aggression on the part of the robber Powers, but she might never have had the chance to play that part had she made the challenge, in any of the earlier crises when her own defences were insecure. Lost liberty may be recovered, if the forces fighting for liberty are strong enough to resist and overpower the aggressor. To have laid down the gauntlet sooner would have been to risk all when the chances were unfavourable. It has been the wisest of statesmanship in such circumstances to play for time in order to gain sufficient strength to offer effective resistance to those Powers, under ambitious leaders, who seem now, behind all the specious facade of pretended innocence of motive and justice of cause, to be setting out deliberately to conquer the world. That is why Mr. Schramm could say with absolute truth that 99 per cent, of the people are behind the present British policy.

It is said the Axis Powers and their associate in the Far East are bluffing now as they always were. If they were bluffing in the past, it was not convenient to call their bluff. If they are bluffing still, their bluff will be called. If they are not bluffing, then there will be war, unless, by a miracle, at last there is a change of heart and an honest, genuine desiro to settle all the ques-

tions in dispute by peaceful methods of negotiation and discussion. "The Times," in the long passages from its leader cabled yesterday, expresses the views of the British people and the people of the British Empire.

No words, says "The Times," can add to the certainty that Britain with her allies will go to war without the smallest hesitation to frustrate a German assault upon the independence of Poland, whatever attempt is made to cloak or obscure it with details of the dispute over Danzig.

Everything shows that Britain and France are in earnest and ready to defend, after other bastions may have fallen in "bloodless war," the bastion of Poland that is Danzig at the mouth of the Vistula, the artery of Polish life and liberty, cA ren if the war, this time no sham, should involve all Europe and Western civilisation. None can say that it is a wiv of Britain's choosing. No man could have done more for peace than Mr. Chamberlain even to the extent of suffering personal obloquy and vile insinuation. The marauding

Powers can have permanent peace even now, but not at a price that lops off the limbs, one by one, of nations that value their liberty above life itself. There is everything to show that the British people are behind this policy—the rapidity and efficiency of re-armament, the rush of volunteers for national service, the wholesale recruiting of the defence forces, and the extensive manoeuvres that are taking place on land, on sea, and in the air. Britain is ready, if the worst comes to the worst, and so is France. Mr. Winston Churchill, after visiting the secret places of the Maginot Line, pronounces that it will provide absolute security against the horrors of invasion. There is no panic, as there was at one stage last September. Fiance is herself again, calm, collected, and ready to defend her soil as stoutly as ever before. Russia, in the face of the general peril, cannot stand aloof, and the military discussions with the French and British missions are reported to be proceeding smoothly. And the British Empire, despite little voices in our own country, is rallying to the defence of all that the jCommonwealth means as one of the firm bastions of a shaken world. At the eleventh hour it faces the future, whatever betide, with confidence in the justice of its cause a.nd the strength of its arms.