BRITAIN’S STABILITY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 2

BRITAIN’S STABILITY

WELLS’S FAITH “In every country Hitler has overrun ! there have been traitors anxious to j secure their money-bags at the price of • any appeasement, however inglorious, and the workers have been sullen and sulky and ready to let down their capitalist government because they could not trust it for a generous deal. France is our object lesson; but the story of all the subjugated countries is a parallel one. We have watched this process for a year as it has drawn nearer to us. “The fundamental question before us just now is how far this process of playing off the fears and disingenuousness of our moneyed and governing class against the increasing discomforts and sacrifices of the worker may not also prove successful in the Englishspeaking world. Let us not deceive ourselves. There is a parallel sabotage in key positions and ‘influential quarters.’ albeit less cynical and deliberate. “But there are certain diffprences in the British atmosphere. There is more give and take between the classes. Compromise, appeasement, is at once our weakness abroad and our strength at home. A sense of solidarity underlies our social stresses, and as a consequence there is a common will for j victory that is entirely alien to the | exasperated (and exasperating) sabot- ! age of the French syndicalist. As a ! people we hate, sabotage. If we get it from above. then. Mayor Quisling (Vidkun Quisling, Nazi-appointed Premier of Norway), I warn you. we may react very violently against it.” —(H. G. Wells, historian and novelist, in an article written for the North American Newspapers Alliance.)