THE FIVE EUROPES

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 June 1939, Page 12

THE FIVE EUROPES

THEIR ROLE IN THE WORLD. When Sir Alfred Zimmern was received as the guest of Manchester Luncheon Club recently, Sir Miles Mitchell, the president, asked the company to drink the unusual toast, “Peace and goodwill among the nations of Europe,” says the ‘Manchester Guardian.’ Sir Alfred, who is professor of international relations at Oxford and a widely acknowledged authority on Avorld politics, took ‘The Five Europes’ as his subject, and prefaced it with remarks on more” immediate things.

For instance, Sir Alfred opened with the cheering remark that we all tend to be over-pessimistic at present. Ten or 15 years ago, the opposite was certainly the case; but now, when we saw children fitted with gas masks, we felt that civilisation was all going to pieces. To one who studied international relations closely Neither attitude was justified. What was happening was simple: the police had been taken off the streets and the criminals had come out. During the nineteenth century the policing of the world was managed by the British Navy, but after the Great War we could not carry the duty on alone. Now there was a vacuum and where there was no police power there was troubles Hence the decline in international relations. And until that great Republic on the other side of the Atlantic realised its responsibilities the position would never be righted. It was a matter of time.

A man whose birthday they had been not exactly celebrating, but noticing—(laughter)—had contributed powerfully to the education that was being given in this direction, as could be seen in the message of President Roosevelt. The President put his finger on the primary thing when he pointed to certain methods of aggression and asked: “Are you going on with this or are you going to stop?” That was a prelude to a. more active responsibility on the part of the United States for the maintenance of World order, and once we had that we should find human relations improving. What was happening in Europe today was not permanent. Czechoslovakia was cut up in three days, but could that last? The present conquests would not last any more than those of Napoleon’s campaigns did. Meantime people talked as though our foreign policy had undergone a revolutionary change because we were taking an interest in Central and Eastern Europe; but that change began at Locarno when we decided we had no such interest, and then at Munich we gave the impression that we had wash' ed our hands completely of everything east of Germany. What was now new was that we had given a guarantee to an inland State, as distinct from our earlier guarantees to maritime States, by extending our commitments to Poland. But we had to choose between complete abdication and getting further in, and getting further in was] along the lines of our traditional policy.

SEA POWER IMPORTANT. Sir Alfred next pointed out how greatly the importance of Europe in the political system of the world had diminished in the last generation. In the nineteenth century of people like Bismarck, Europe seemed to be the centre not only of the diplomacy, but of the power of the world, but the industrial revolution had changed that, siifee military power to-day depended on access to mineral resources in which Europe was comparatively poor. Tin’s had. but put sea power above military power, which meant that the only great nations were the sea Powers, of which there -were two —the United States, which was the greatest, and the British Empire. Between them these two controlled 75 per cent. Of the mineral resources of the world, and these resources were not in colonial areas, but in metropolitan territory. Ninety per cent, of the nickel of the -world was in Ontario. That meant, that Germany and Italy were not (treat Powers.

“I would describe Germany,” Sir Alfred said, “as a second class Power with a very nasty sting, and perhaps

we are a first class Power without horns.” Germans of ambition wh» wished to make Germany a first class Power could do it over the bodies of the British Empire and the United States, and then only in a short war, because they could not last out a long xvar.

Sir Alfred then defined the five Europes of his text. There was, first, Great Britain, of Europe, but not in it. Strategically, economically, and by history we belonged to Europe, but psychologically Melbourne was closer to London than Prague.

There were, secondly, the constitutional democracies, from Sweden down to Switzerland, with whom it was extremely desirable that we should establish closer relations and improved mutual understanding. The third Europe was the two geographically Central Powers of Germany and Italy, both of which arrived at theil - consummation of political developments as a unified State very late —in the nineteenth century. The deepest cause of the present European troubles Avas the political immaturity of those tAvo countries; they have not learnt common sense in politics/

The fourth Europe was the belt inhabited by a. large number of nationalities stretching across Europe to the Baltic, about whom, we knew nothing, but who were gifted and interesting people to whom we owed something because they had acted as a buffer. Nothing would in the long run resist the movement towards freedom of those people. The Poles would not again, as in the nineteenth century, live under alien rule, and he could not see the Czechs permanently under alien rule. He thought the countries in this best would unite, perhaps in a Danubian federation, and that they would remain substantially free.

The fifth Europe Sir Alfred defined as Russia, holding a similar position to the East to that which we held to the West, and in some ways—geographically and in .resources —closely akin to the United /States.

Dismissing as nonsense all talk of a United States of Europe, Sir Alfred said that what was needed was neighbourly relations, and these existed already over a large part of the Continent, with a model for the rest offered by the three Scandinavian States. It was a mistake to think there <vas a solution in giving Germany a free hand in the fourth zone which he had marked out, with the Germans treating the peoples as colonials and bringing them into the German economic system. It was a typical outlook of the German reactionary that the Germans were superior people and those others were inferior; and there was the real trouble of Germany’s political immaturity.