DEAL OR WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 13 January 1938, Page 3

DEAL OR WAR

Foreign A ffairs

Britain Waits—and Arms

WORLD ENIGMA

Hitler wants a deal It is the keystone of his foreign policy. He believes that the German tribe should have made one with the British back in the first decade of the century. The British offered one then. Thev asked the Germans to keep off Britain’s sea toes. If they had to do some marching, they could do it on land in Europe. The Hohenzoilern war party refused to play, and the first world war went into the incubator as the menaced British joined the Gauls and prepared to fight as soon as the Germans thrust westwards (writes C. Patrick Thompson in the Sydney “Herald”). The British want a deal. too. Both the British and the German tribes know that if there is a second Punic War, a third is improbable in which both Germany and British participate. The second will finish one. or the other, and may finish both. If Germany and Britain clash, and Germany wins, the era of the economic empires Will pass, and that of the new military empires will begin. Even :f Britain wins, it is improbable that democracy as we know it will survive the next fiery war blast. War-obsessed minds are taking wing over the landscape of a capitalist world, which they believe to be disintegrating with a velocity only dimly perceived by the great liberal democracies whose economic empires dominate it. In Japan, men are dreaming of a great new empire of 500.000.000 on Die Pacific coast, with a war machine reaching out to make the Pacific Ocean a Japanese lake. In Italy, men dream of a great new empire, based on the Mediterranean lands, and embracing all Africa. Tn Germany, men dream first of carving out a natural empire in t'*e enormous European and Asiatic land block now under Soviet sway, and then moving on on. In Russia, men dream of civil wars exploding in State after State, until the world is unified by Communism with Moscow as its world capital

Russia, and a western pact can be swung, which will leave the German war staff free to act in the knowledge that the Rhine frontier is safe and Britain is neutral in any eastern war. But time passes, and the British still procrastinate. Meanwhile, every week sees econo- j mie pressures grow in regimented Ger- ! many, which Nazi spending has gutted, i while Eiv’and grows stronger in arms, organisation, and unity, and more determined than ever not to identify herself with either of the ideological groups which, in their respective zones, have j overthrown liberal democracy—one seeking to destroy capital everywhere, while the other bases itself on worship of the nation State, and while disciplining capital along with labour, inevitably seeks to extend its political boundaries and to destroy its life j source, Communism, wherever it ap- j pears. To get Germany back among the anti- j war States the British Empire leaders I would probably admit the claim— J strong in international law—for the re- i turn of Germany’s old colonies. But it is equally improbable that Britain will make a colonial deal .except as part of a general pacification settlement which brings Germany back among the nations desirous of living at peace with their neighbours.

Dictators’ Distrust.

Two of the dreamers had a love-fen.-t in Berlin it: September—the Founder • 1 the Third Reich and the Founder J the Italian Empire There was much talk of Fascist solidarity, which, being translated, means: “The future belongs to us. the military empires. The empires of the liberal democracies are fat and frightened. They won’t fight.” But when the cheering was over a small voice intruded into those uneasy minds: "Suppose under pressures th*\«;? economic empires at last fight and change into aggressiye military empire?’’ Where da we stand? What air we heading into? And how far can we trust one another anyway?” Mussolini is afraid Hitler will sell him out to Britain: Hitler is afraid Brit »in will make n deal with the Machiavellian Mussolini which will leave him without a single ally—not that Mussolini. straddled over Spain and Ea >t Africa, and weak in natural resources is much of an ally anyway. Britain, rapidly arming, formidable, team-rUn. old in the game of war and intrigue, is the joker in the war-pack. In governing circles in England ’’e consensus of view is hardening that a deal i.> possible with Fascist Italy, weak, hard-up. run by a shrewd, cynical realist, but not with a Nazi regime

determined to carry out the full twopart. Nazi expansion programme. Hitler demands colonies, but the British believe that is only a bargaining point which will be abandoned if they promise to stay neutral white Hitler’s “fighting herd” drives in to carve an empire out of the gigantic Russian land block.

Drang Nach Osten.

j A glance at the map shows how Stalins Communist empire tempts and j hires the encircled warrior tribes in Germany. Russia is big enough to be | their India and Africa in one. Siberia j is the world’s greatest undeveloped terj ritory. ! Feeling in their marrow that the i Germanic tribes under Nazi inspiration . ale dreaming again the dangerous dream of world mastery, or downfall, j the present British team will do nothing likely to imperil further the insej cure British Empire, either to-day or I to-morrow. Unless driven to it by some unexpected turn in the protracted play, they have no intention of letting a German war party remedy the supreme blunder of 1914, and this time bite off just as much as it can comlortably chew each time without breaking its teeth. The Nazi brain trusters Hitler bends an ear to most willingly arc those who j tell him that sooner than get involved I in another world war Britain will un- ! conditionally disgorge the old Hoheni zollern colonies and/or give pledges to 1 I ranee which will 4etach her irons

The Time Factor.

Everything now turns on the time | factor. The Chamberlain team believes that if it can through diplomacy and deals prevent a general conflagration until its new war machine and Empire defence organisation are complete, peace will be assured for a decade or two anyway in a western world where power is very evenly distributed. j The men of the von Neurath breed in < Germany want to make a colonial deal, and then wait. Anti-democrats by temperament and training, they have small faith in the capacity of democracy to survive the economic crisis of this age. Current phenomena and trends feed that faith. A Fascist-minded group in England, politically unimportant to-day, but maybe not to-morrow, takes a similar view, and favours a deal now on the basis of a free hand for Germany in eastern Europe. In general the group is anti-labour, and has two main divisions. One wants Nazi Germany to survive and grow through absorption of the Communist breeding-ground; the other wants to let a war it believes to be inevitable explode eastwards along the line of least resistance. The latter school sees a long and confused struggle rolling over Asia, Fascism and Communism knocking one another out in those enormous undeveloped spaces, and Britain, thoroughly organised and at last direct-minded, j with allies, waiting and knocking out the first one to stagger up groggily and make aggressive gestures. Quite a number of the upper middleclass British, generals among them, see the Germans as blood brothers, the Germans breaking away from an unnatural tie-up with Italy, and ‘Britain settling accounts with Mussolini, and making the Mediterranean safe for Imperial Britain. Britain would take i care of France; and the Germans could I go ahead and carve their land empire j out of south and east Europe and west Asia, leaving the British unmolested in their Empire in the track of the seaways around the world. Two warrior States, each supreme in its own chosen field. The average Briton, whose mind does not take him on these larger flights, has come to believe that a deal cannot be made with Hitler because all he wants is a free hand to start a war which he can win in eastern Europe, after which he will turn west and “have a smack at us.” The discussions go on, endlessly. Meantime, Britain has become a great war factory, just in case no deal with Nazi Germany is possible. Because if there is no deal, sooner or later there will be war—although whether it will be a local, or a general European, or a second world war, depends upon fac- ! tors and events beyond the power of I any one Government to shape or control.