A “WICKED EMPIRE”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21994, 20 June 1941, Page 2

A “WICKED EMPIRE”

AMERICAN LOOKS AT BRITAIN \ Under the heading “That Wicked British Empire,” an American has drawn up 16 points, says the London “Daily Telegraph.” They are:— 1. It insisted on settling the Alabama claims by arbitration. 2. It followed the same vain policy in 1895 about Venezuela. 3. It gave the defeated Boers so crafty a peace that the poor deluded fools fought to stay inside the Empire only a decade later. 4. Its leaders rashly warned the Versailles Peace Conference of the dangers of harsh terms to Germany. 5. It cruelly gave Southern Ireland “Dominion status,” shown by this war to mean complete independence. 6. It stupidly presented India with economic independence, so that India now excludes British goods by a stiff, hostile tariff and by bounties upon Indian production, 7. It had possession of Egypt and Irak, and bungled things so badly that both are now free. 8. In the Ottawa Agreement, which shut Germany out of some of its markets, it had the presumption to copy our protective tariff wall. 9. It offers India self-government as soon as Hindu and Moslem will come to a working agreement. “A Naive Faith” 10. It treated the Arabs so brutally that, the minute war broke out, the Arabs took advantage of a preoccupied Britain to make a truce with the Palestinian Jews. 11. It still has a naive faith in religion, democracy, and the rights of the minorities. 12. It is deluded enough to think right at a distance worth defending. 13. It has not the wit to shoot or at least Imprison conscientious objectors. In many cases they are carrying on at their old Jobs. 14. It missed its chance to close down Parliament. The windbag institution is still functioning. 14. It is so simple that it tells the truth about its losses in air battles, as our own observers in Britain testify. 16. It refuses to use naval bases tn Eire, which have been in its hands for centuries and which would be an enormous help against U-boats and raiders. It allows a vital part of its tiny islands to contract out of any struggle for survival, because Eire wishes it. It swears to its own hurt and changes not. The writer adds these notes of exclamation: “What a country! No wonder Dr Goebbels gibes at it.”