BOOKS--

Northern Advocate, 26 January 1938, Page 2

BOOKS--

Realities Of Empire Defence

“The Defence of the Empire,” by Sir Norman Angell, Tlamish Hamilton. (In the Whangarei Public Library).

Britain had on her side not only France and Belgium, but Russia, Italy, Japan, the United Ftates —greater Powers than she can hope to have “next time”—aggression was not prevented and victory was a near thing. What are the lessons? If, as events show, great power does not of itse'l prevent aggression, by what political arrangement can it be made so to do? Has the defensive position of the Empire improved or v/orsened by recent policy in respect of Italy, Germany, the Spanish Government and the Spanish Insurgents? Sir Norman Angell supplies the answers in his latest work. Empire Is Worth Defending.

First he shows why, from the point of view of the progressive, the antiimperialist, the British Empire is worth defending. Dealing with the evolution of independent States he says: “We are ‘giving away’ the Empire to the only people to whom colonies ought to be ‘given away’—to the people who live in them.” “The retention of old words, though the conditions they describe have long since passed, tend badly to distort our thoughts,” he says. “The demand that the ‘haves’ surrender something of their ‘possessions’ to the ‘have-nots’ would lose a great deal of its force if it were fully realised that the ‘haves’ do not. for the most part, possess what they ‘have’ and consequently cannot : v/cll give it up.

Au Alternative,

As an alternative to redistribution of colonies, Sir Norman would prefer tc have Britain tell Germany: “We are not prepared to have you ‘own’ colonies, because we are ceasing to ‘own’ them ourselves. We are prepared to give you real equality of access.” As a means by which free States may learn to combine for common defence, Sir Norman regards the Commonwealth as a servant of freedom, and its retreat before the ever-grow-ing power of Fascist Dictatorship as constituting a grievous weakening of that everywhere. - No power, however great, or however heavily armed, can deter the prospective aggressor unless he believes that that power will be used against him, which the author believes to be the main unlearned lesson bf the Great War. We may well at times, he believes, decreases our liabilities by increasing our obligations and commitments. The Rea! Question. The real question, it is evident to Sir Norman, is not whether the Versailles Treaty is just or unjust, whether it needs revision or not. but whether Germany is to be the sole judge of that revision. The illusion of securing peace within the framework of the old anarchy by remedy of specific grievances is exploded by inquiring: “Were we suffering under a Versailles Treaty when we entered a war which every honest observer knows, we would have entered whether there had been the Belgian issue or not?”

Dealing with the necessity for a strong international body, such as a reformed and really sincere League of Nations, Sir Norman asks what litigant, convinced of his own rightness, would submit to law if sure that he could, oi his own force, impose his view on the other party? V: Reverses Policy of Great War.

Penetratingly and fearlessly, Sir Norman sweeps away the clouds of popular misconception and shows what great disservice the English reactionaries. once Imperialist, allied with the extreme pacifists, have done to freedom, Democracy and international law (which means peace), by flouting "he League and leading the retreat of Britain.

He traces the cumulative effect of the policy adopted by Great Britain during the last seven years, in the case of the Manchurian, Abyssinian, Rhineland and Spanish affairs and of the German effort to recreate a European

hegemony. The new attitude which some of our statesmen and many of the British newspapers are adopting towards German hegemony, reverses the policy of the Great War. he points out, and cannot be reconciled with any system of Imperial security or with any system of peace. The lost opportunity to accept proffered United States acquiescence in the British view of sea rights, is particularly decried. Our whole attitude means this, he finds:— “We will fight to defend our ‘direct interests,’ to defend our view of our rights when they conflict with the views of another nation; we will arm as a litigant; we will not help to arm the law."

The moral which Sir Norman Angoll found in the Abyssinian episode, is that we do not believe the collective method, the method of the League Covenant, to be the true method of defence at all. So long as that is our belief, he says, it cannot possibly succeed. “Utterly Inexplicable.”

Sir Norman searches for the ultimate explanation of the fact that* so much

of British opinion adopts to other nations, guilty of aggressions which worsen the defensive position of the Empire, an attitude of “jubilation” which would have been utterly inexplicable before the Great War. “If the ■ commonest explanation—that this attitude is dictated by fear of Moscow Communism —is correct,” he says, “then clearly it is a fear now completely out of date, which disregards the facts and ignores the changes of the last 20 years. “To destroy the present Moscow Government (engaged at the moment of writing in putting on trial for their lives the Bolshevist Old Guard, who accuse the Government of reverting to capitalism) would be to increase the very dangers our Conservatives profess to fear,” he says. “It would certainly be true today to say ■ that capitalism, or orderly economic evolution is much more threatened by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy—by the shifts in the way of monetary control and tariff policy to which they will be driven, by the state controls their war preparations will involve —than it is by Russian Communism, As much would it be true to say that the Nazi altitude to Christianity, using, that is, tire power of a highly organised State to create a new religion, pagan and anti-Christian, in place of mat

of the Jew Christ and the Jewess Mary, is infinitely more dangerous from tne Christian point of view than the crude anti-Godism of Russia.”

A most helpful, enlightening and challenging book (few will agree with all the opinions expressed but likewise none will doubt their sincerity and penetration) concludes by quoting the main lines of a policy which, put forward clearly as that for which Great Britain stands, Sir Norman Angell believes, would secure the support of the Dominions and the increasing co-operation of the United States.

Edited By “Caxton ”