BRITISH STRENGTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 1 July 1939, Page 11

BRITISH STRENGTH

GERMAN ANALYSIS CANDID TRIBUTE GIVEN NEGATION OF PROPAGANDA -NAZI’S REMARKABLE BOOK It would be hard to imagine a more effective antidote to the current Nazi propaganda against Britain than is provided by a rather extraordinary German book, a i English translation of which was published in London three weeks ago. Its title is, “How Strong is Britain?” and the author is Count Pueckler, a former London correspondent of the “Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” and an intimate of the German Foreign Minister, Hen- von Ribbentrop. The following are extracts from a review by Mr J. C. Johnstone in the “Daily Telegraph and Morning Post,’’ just received by air mail. FALSEHOODS DEMOLISHED The author, Mr Johnstone writes, addresses himself to the task of estimating the real strength of Great Britain and the British Empire in all its aspects, moral, military, strategic and economic. He accomplishes it with a moderation, detachment and zeal for truth which stands out in shining contrast from the familiar methods of Dr Goebbels’ 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 assidiously cultivating during the past few months. Ever since the November progroms 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 is 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 bv Count Pueckler PEACEFUL AD MINISTRY CION Alter remarking that the total strength ot British troop units in the overseas Empire (excluding the Dominions) is only 30 squadrons of aeroplanes and about 92,000 men, the count goes on: “The fact that an Empire with a coloured popnhtion 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 chrome skirmishing on the North-West Frontier, the occasional religious and racial troubles in India, and the present disturbance in Palestine, peace reigns throughout the whole vast British Empire.” NO RIgK OF AGGRESSION 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 e'en if she wished Being an object of envy on account of her vast possessions, she is compelled willy nilly to conciliate world opinion “by a strictly ethical use of her power.” In any case he considers it “highly doubtful whether the British people would be pre-

pared to take up arms for any purely egotistical national interest at the expense of other peoples.” Irom 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, providing its own foreign policy is as strictly as Great Britain 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 moral case was indisputably on the side of Germany AN IMPLIED CONDEMNATION r J here 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 v/e have no means of knowing. Certainly it pomes 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.” The author analyses very carefully the economic factors affecting Britain’s warlike strength, and, in view of certain tendencies, especially the self-sufficient policies of Germany and other nations, he concludes that she is destined gradually to become poorer. To a certain extent her position and prospects have deteriorated, fo- “Great Britain habitually wins her wars thanks to her sounder economic wind.” Count Pueckler points out that not only has the capital value of her overseas investments fallen, but they are now held predominately within the Empire, and are less favourably situated for mobilisation for war purposes. STILL EXTREMELY FORMIDABLE On the other hand, Britain’s domestic productive capacity lias substantially increased, it is incomparably better organised for war purposes than ever before, and the post-war industrialisation of the Dominions, particularly Canada, represents a great potential access of strength. Altogether, the author regards the total economic resources of the Empire in the the event of war as still extremely formidable. Britain, he says* is faced with more difficult strategic problems than in 1914, but she is militarily better prepared to cope with them, and will become much more so in the near future.

Constitutional changes have not weakened the Empire, which, on the contrary “has developed into a unique institution whose inner cohesion is greater than would appear on the surface, and it faces the world as a united whole.” This, it should be noted, was written before the revolutionary change in British foreign policy last March.