BRITAIN’S STRENGTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 September 1939, Page 10

BRITAIN’S STRENGTH

SURPRISING GERMAN TRIBUTE There has just been published an English translation of a rather surprising book about this country which recently appeared in Germany (“How Strong is Britain?”), writes J. C. Johnstone in the London “Daily Telegraph.” The author, Count Pueckler, a former London correspondent of the “Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,” and an intimate of Herr von Ribbentrop, addresses himself to the task of esti-

mating the real strength of Great Britain and the' Briitsh Empire in all its aspects, moral, military, strategic, and economic. He accomplishes it with a moderation, detachment, and zeal for truth which stand out in shining contrast from the familiar methods of Dr. Goebbels’s system of “enlightenment.” “What is chiefly surprising about the book is that it should be allowed to circulate in Germany at all. For it ruthlessly demolishes some of the major falsehoods which the Nazi propaganda machine has been so assiduously cultivating during the past few months.

Ever since the November pogroms and especially since the Czech coup in March, the controlled Press has been trying to persuade the German people that the British Empire is a grisly tyranny created and maintained by a “bloody terror” from which its alleged victims are always struggling to liberate themselves. Any section of the German people which may have been disposed to swallow this nonsense will be astonished at the picture drawn by Count Pueckler.

After remarking that the total strength of British troop units in the overseas Empire (excluding the Dominions) is only 3(1 squadrons of planes and about 92,000 men, the Count goes on:

“The fact that an empire with a coloured population of over 400,000,000 souls can be held with such weak forces is a brilliant testimony to British administrative talent. . . Such a thing is possible because the British Empire is not like the old Roman Empire, and has not to be constantly defended against the insurrections of oppressed peoples. The existence of the British Empire is not daily being called in question from within. With the exception of chronic skirmishing on the North-west Frontier, the occasional religious and racial troubles in India, and the present disturbances in Palestine, peace reigns throughout the whole vast British Empire.” From the point of view of official | Nazi propaganda, Count Pueckler is disconcertingly candid on another topic Great Britain, he says, dare not. under existing conditions, pursue an aggressive policy even if she wished.

Being an object of envy on account of her vast possessions, she is compelled willy nilly to conciliate world opinion “b.v a strictly ethical use of her power.” In any ease ho considers it “highly doubtful whether the British people would be prepared to take up arms for any purely egotistical national interest al the expense of other peoples.” MORAL BACKGROUND. P'roni this moral check on her policy “it follows that no country in the world has anything to fear from her. no matter how strong she may be. provided its own foreign policy is as strictly ethical as Groat Brit,'tin’s is compelled by circumstances to be.” It was this, the Count tells us, that made it impossible for Great Britain to resist by force the emancipation of

the Rhineland or the Austrian and Sudeten Anschluss, since in all these actions the moarl case was indisputably on the side of Germany. There is internal evidence that the

book was written before Herr Hitler committed the indisputably immoral act of annexing Bohemia and Moravia. Whether the Count himself was scandalised by that step we have no means of knowing. Certainly it comes within his own definition of “aggressive aims,” which are “aims achieved at the expense of other nations,” and such aims, he asserts, a statesman of to-day can pursue only “if his own nation and its allies are so powerful that he can defy whatever circles may be involved, perhaps the whole world.”

It may be that the Count, as a devout Nazi, bitterly repents his imprudence in penning the chapter of which the pith is contained in the above quotations. But one can only marvel at the Nazi propaganda bureau permitting the German public to read so devastating an exposure of its “encirclement” propaganda by one of its own leading publicists, and to learn that the country which is supposed to be the architect of the “encirclement” is the very one from which “no other country in the world has anything to fear” provided its own foreign policy follows strictly ethical lines. In his analysis of the material factors affecting Britain’s warlike strength, Count Pueckler notices on

the economic side certain well-known directions in which she has suffered some recent decline. Her mercantile marine, her income from banking services abroad, her overseas investments have all shrunk, her favourable balance of payments has disappeared, and she is beginning to live on her capital. These developments he attributes. rightly, of course, to the efforts of other nations, especially Germany, to “build up their prosperity” by means of a policy of self-sufficiency. In view of these last tendencies, which the Count foresees as permanent, he thinks that Great Britain is destined gradually to become poorer. Her vast accumulated wealth is the product not of any intrinsic superiority, but of her long monopoly of industrialisation in the early and middle nineteenth century, which enabled her to create her immense overseas investments. The most she can do now is, if possible, to maintain her inheritance. She cannot hope to increase it, nor to replace it if Jost, since the conditions which permitted her to acquire it in the first instance are gone for ever.

To this extent her position and prospects have deteriorated, for “Great Britain habitually wins her wars thanks to her sounder economic wind." Count Pueckler avoids exaggerating the present degree of the deterioration, but he docs insist on one factor of importance.

'l’his is that not onl.v has the capital value of her overseas investments fallen, but they are less favourably situated from the point of view of mobilisation for war purposes. For, whereas they were formerly held to a great extent in foreign countries, notably the Lnited States. tbej r are now held predominantly in the Empire, especially the Dominions. But since the Dominions would probably help the Mother Country to the greatest extent of their power in any case, investments held in those countries cannot be regarded as an addition to the total economic strength of the Empire for war purposes.

On the other side of the picture the Count points out that Britain’s domestic productive capacity Ims substantially im-reased. that it is ineompawi lily better organised for war purposes

I than ever before, and that the posts war industrialisation of the Dominions ■ represents a great potential access of strength. In particular he mentions i Canada as an impregnable base for 1 aeroplane construction. Moreover, . given command of the seas, the Colonial Empire affords an immense and readily accessible reservoir for raw materials. Altogether he regards the total economic resources of the Empire for war purposes as still extremely formidable. From the military standpoint he recognises that the British Navy has a much greater preponderance in European waters than at the outbreak of the last war, and that the relative strength of the allied French Navy is also greater. On the other hand, Great Britain has, of course, to reckon with the partial loss of her island immunity through the development of air power and also with the danger to merchant shipping as it approaches the bottle-neck of the Channel. “Today,” he says, “the danger has arisen that the fjrst battle, the battle of the air, will be the last battle, and that by a direct attack on what was formerly an unassailable base, Great Britain will be deprived of the ability to prepare herself for the final battle.” UNIQUE AND UNITED WHOLE Moreover, the changed attitude of Italy has created new difficulties in the Mediterranean —a disadvantage, however, against which he partially offsets the friendship with Turkey, since consolidated by the mutual guar-

antee pact. On the question whether Great Britain would be likely to succumb to a knock-out blow in the initial stages of a war, Count Pueckler does not commit himself. But his general conclusion is that •‘although Great Britain is faced with more difficult strategic! problems to-day than she was in 1914, yet she is militarily better prepared to cope with them” and will become much niort| so in the near future. As to the Empire, Count Pueckler scouts the idea that it has suffered any weakening from the constitutional changes since the war. On the contrary, it “has developed into a unique institution whose inner cohesion is greater than would appeal' on the surface. and if faces the world as a united whole.” The Count warns his readers against the facile assumption that because on many occasions in recent years Great Britain has been content to accept changes detrimental to her interests with nothing more than vain protests therefore her star is on the wane. He points out that in view of her varied and far-flung responsibilities she cannot possibly exert her full power every time one of her minor interests is threatened. Therefore, he says:

“It is not true that a country which injures Great Britain’s interests must necessarily reckon with the full force of Britain’s might. It is quite possible to pull a hair or two out of the British Lion’s tail without any very serious consequences resulting and the problem of how many hairs must be pulled out in a bunch, or how often individual hairs can be pulled out, before the Lion turns is almost a problem for a sophist, something like the problem of how many stones make a heap.”

The British Lion’s indulgent tolerance of the process of “strip-teasing” his tail came abruptly to an end last. March, since when the services of the sophist have become superfluous. If Herr Hitler and Herr von Ribbentrop are in any danger of despising the strength of the Bion's teeth and claws now that he lias turned they will do well t<. consult Count Punchier or his book before worse befalls them.