The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1938. BAITING THE PEACE MAKER.

Evening Star, Issue 23146, 21 December 1938, Page 10

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1938. BAITING THE PEACE MAKER.

How many more motions of censure are to be fired at Mr Chamberlain’s Government for its work for rearmament and peace? If the Prime Minister was as much concerned with party politics as His Majesty’s Opposition he might find the procedure amusing. As it is, it must surely grow monotonous and a little dispiriting and dull. In his latest motion of no-confidence, Dr Dalton, for the Labour Party, took a wider sweep. His indictment was brought against all tho National Governments since 1914 for “ big errors of judgment ” that had had a main share in bringing tho world to its present state. That also is a familiar charge, in propaganda, if not in Parliament. It will be best met by a reference to the most wanton, the most heinous, and the most disastrous offence of all, as it is alleged at intervals by eager sharp-shooters at British policy. In 1931, it is declared, the British Government refused to make common cause with the then American Secretary of State, Mr Stimson, in his desire to invoke the Nine-Power Treaty when Japan seized Manchuria. Hence the whole series of aggressions that has persisted to the present time. The idea is a myth. It has found currency in America, where it pleases American pride. It has boon exposed within the last few weeks in the London ‘ Times ’ by Sir John Pratt, a high official of the Foreign Office, and exposed previously. It is on all fours with Mr Reginald M'Kenna’s supposed endorsement of Douglas Credit views about bankers, which derives all its force from leaving off at the right place, and Lord Baldwin’s denunciation of a carefully particularised section of the British Press, quoted as if he had referred to the Press as a whole. There is no worse sin in such perversions of evidence, usually, than a desire to asperse. Critics see a partially quoted statement or an unsubstantiated general statement which falls in with their prejudices, and adopt it with glee. There have been defects in British rearmament which are being amended. Opponents of tho Government have made the most of these, though experts have extolled the record as a whole. What is certain is that there has been far more rearmament than Liberals and Labourites would have allowed, if they could have had their way. There have been different views of the Munich agreement. It is certain, however, that, on the lowest valuation, Mr Chamberlain chose the lesser of two evils, which only polities could view a.s a crime. Concessions which he made at Munich were much more in the Liberal than in the Conservative tradition. It was by precisely such sacrifices for peace, according to tho eulogists of a few years ago, that Gladstone showed himself in advance of his time. The Munich agreement, says Dr Dalton, has unsettled all Europe. But Dr Dalton certainly would not have preferred its alternative, unless Labour principles have changed. *‘ It was the abandonment of the principles of tho League Covenant which had brought Europe to tho edge of war,” says Sir Archibald Sinclair. There is no more perfervid champion of the League than General Smuts, and General Smuts has said—in his speech on Armistice Day—that he doubts “ whether the League can ever function properly unless it secures the return of all or most of the Great Powers to its membership.” In the same speech the great South African Liberal found these two hopeful signs m the times; —“ There has been a farreaching change in the temper of tho nations and their attitude to war. Everywhere the pacific temper was growing under the surface. There has also been an advance in another important direction. The superior and almost contemptuous attitude of the victorious nations towards the defeated nations in the years following tho War lias passed away.” Who can differ from Mr Chamberlain’s conviction in regard to Germany that “ unless this strong and virile people can be induced in partnership with others to improve the general lot, there will be neither peace nor progress in Europe in tho things that make life worth living”?

There was no weakness in iho Prime Minister’s revelation of his general policy, though appeasement is its object. The purpose of his pending Italian visit, “ to improve our relations by a general understanding of one another’s point of view and to strengthen the confidence between us,” has just as much application to Germany as to Italy, and Herr Hitler has hastened to pronounce that ho favours peace as much as Mr Chamberlain. If ho has said truly that he has no further territorial ambitions in Europe the way to understanding should be clear. There are facts, unfortunately, that must make profound misgivings. Why, at this stage, should Germany be endorsing the most unnatural demands by Italy at the expense of France? What, precisely, is happening in the Ukraine, whose people form a slightly different race from the Northern -Russians and for a while were a separate State in the first days of the Republic? German designs on the Ukraine, which have boon suspected, would be strongly opposed by Poland, who would be brought within Gorman pincers by their success. Rut these and other questions will not bo worsened, and they may be helped, by discussions between leading Powers in accordance with the .Chamberlain programme.