"The Struggle for Peace"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 4

"The Struggle for Peace"

Mr Neville Chamberlain. " a man of peace to the depths cf my soul,” recognised when he accepted prime ministerial office in May. 1937, that *he greatest charge upon the Government would be to re-establish the defensive forces of Great Britain, cepmbining preparedness with “ a sustained effort to remove the causes which are still delaying the return of confidence in Europe.” In the speeches that have been collected in this book, which cover the Prime Minister’s utterances on peace and its problems during the past two years, the reader obtains an opportunity of observing how faithfully. with what painstaking perseverance, he has devoted himself to a great cause. “I have striven,” he declares in a foreword, “ with all my power to dispel the nightmare of war which has so long hung over Europe. My efforts have been mocked at by some and denounced by others, but I believe that by the majority they have been approved, and if peace has not yet been securely established, we have at any rate so far escaped the calamity of war.”

Particularly interesting are those pages dealing with the Czechoslovakian crisis of September, 1938. It should not be necessary to. be reminded that at the end of that month the world believed that an outbreak of war was a question only of hours, but the interchange of letters between Mr Chamberlain and Herr Hitler, prior to their conversations at Godesberg make it clear how uncompromising was the demand of the German Fuhrer upon a favourable settlement of the minority problem. This is a point which the Prime Minister afterwards emphasised

“The Struggle for Peace.” By the Rt. Hon. Neville Chamberlain (Hutchinson). 13s Od.

before the House of Commons. The Godesberg memorandum, he said, though cast in the form of proposals, was in fact “ an ultimatum, with a time limit of six days.” And a re-examina-tion of Herr Hitler’s “ proposals ” makes that assumption inevitable. What the Munich Agreement achieved, he told the House, was the saving of Czechoslovakia from annihilation, enabling the republic “to enjoy in the future and develop a national existence under a neutrality and security comparable to that of Switzerland to-day.” In the event, his anticipations were shattered, but Mr Chamberlain, in his statement at Birmingham upon the German occupation in March of this year, was able to provide a strong defence of his Munich policy. “Really I have no need to defend my visits to Germany last autumn,” he said, “for what was the alternative? ” The peace of Europe had been saved, and, “ it it had not been for those visits, hundreds of thousands of families would to-day have been in mourning for the flower of Europe’s manhood.” Herr Hitler himself had declared before Munich, the Prime Minister recalled that “ when this problem is solved, Germany has no more territorial problems in Europe.” Mr Chamberlain had accepted those assurances, but Herr Hitler’s breach caused one to ask. “ What reliance can be placed upon other assurances that come from that same source? ” His measured audio the reading, almost unemotionalanalysis of the significance of the Czechoslovakian invasion in the light of Herr Hitler’s pledged word, may well be re-read by those who impute some sinister motive to the British Government in this tragic affair. The

* betrayal,” Mr Chamberlain maintains with impressive logic, was Herr Hitler’s breaking of his word. The last speeches in the book, dated immediately after the Czechoslovakian seizure, show that the sterner attitude of the Government, as evidenced in the undertaking to provide smaller nations with guarantees against invasion, was the direct outcome of an act at which Mr Chamberlain’s critics have even suggested he connived. The book, which has explanatory notes provided by Mr Arthur Bryant is a necessary reference volume for those who are making an earnest study of contcm-r-orary European history. A. L. 1'