BRITAIN AND EUROPE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 282, 2 December 1935, Page 11

BRITAIN AND EUROPE

BEAVERBROOK'S FLEA ESCAPE TO DOMINIONS The London Daily Express of September 24 carried a special front page editorial on the Italian crisis by its owner. Lord Beaverbrook, entitled, “We Have Risked Enough.” In it the point of view so often put forward by Lord Beaverbrook is advanced again, namely, that Britain should withdraw from the political complications of Europe and from the League of Nations, says a writer in the Winnipeg Free Press. Suggesting that the League would split on the question of sanctions against Italy, and that Germany, ' Japan, and the United States Will not “support economic sanctions,” Lord Beaverbrook asks if in such circumstances it is “conceivable that Britain will make any progress in the direction of peace by almost singlehanded use of this instrument.” He then asks if it is not time to say that - “we have spent enough of our energy on the League of Nations, that we cut ourself free from those troubles with a clear conscience, and that the time has come when we biust devote our attention to our own business, our own Empire, and the welfare and happiness of our own people?” The curious view put forward with apparent seriousness by Lord Beaverbrook is that Britain can enjoy the benefits of her Empire without accepting responsibility for what is going on in the rest of the world; Europe in particular. Such energy as England has spent in the League, and in the Italian crisis, Lord Beaverbrook regards as a sort of voluntary offering on the part of the British Government in matters which do not really concern it; and having reasoned and pleaded unsuccessfully with the Italians and other League members on the question at issue, Britain, he urges, should now announce that she is bored by the hopeless wrangle, and Retire to a useful life with her own dependencies and .Dominions. Territories Remain Unfortunately for Lord Beaverbrook’s idea the territories of the British Empire cannot be extracted from their geographical surroundings and segregated as a unit of any de-scription-political or economic. The geography in which the Empire is embedded gives everything which goes on in that georgraphy not only a real, but a vital, perhaps a fateful, interest for England. How could England retire with a tired yawn from the present Italian adventure when the locale of that adventure is the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea? Lord Beaverbrook would agree that for the Empire to enjoy its own resources and advantages it is necessary to keep the Suez route open to British Imperial interests. Does he suggest that if England withdrew from European politics she could keep the Mediterranean Sea as the British Lake which it now is? It would be interesting if Lord Beaverbrook would work out his ideas in detail. If he did so, it plight become ap] arent why the alleged blessings of isolation from Europe have so Fttle charm for British Governments. It would also become a little clearer, too, why Britain, so far from withdrawing from the League, is working with it in the closest relationsh’p. In taking his enlightened course she is choosing, from the viewpoint of even the keenest realis-. in foreign. affa ; rs, the better path. What is essential to an effective jntertational sc-t-Dement by which peace really will be guaranteed ’s a mutual eauxlibriuir agreed upon and accepted by .European nations. The Italian attack on Ethiopia is, in one of its aspects, an indication that such an equilibrium does not exist, and it is also, to some extent, an attempt on the part of Italy to rearrange the international balance to a greater degree in her favour. Of First Importance. Such a rearrangement in such an area would obviously be of supreme importance to England; it would bring her into the situation in the fullest way had the League of Nations never existed, but the existence of the League, together with the principles for which the League stands, albeit it , is now undoubtedly rather draggled by bad treatment, enables Britain to deal with the crisis from a much moie brcadly-based and impersonal position, which is all to the good so fir as the general problem is concerned, and to. her own advantage so far as her personal interests are at stake. Lord Beaverbrook’s reading of the situation is a B t r :.ngo one. It is the Dominions, Canada in particular, which have the minimum of geographical interest in Europe in the development of their national life, and it is their League membership and little else that

brings them into the orbit of the ItaloEthiopian crisis. The Dominions are in the League, strange as it may appear, to further the distinterested ideal of world peace. England’s connections and problems in Europe are ot their problems, and were the League to vanish, and the ideal of world peace vanish with it, Lord Beaverbrook might find that the influence had also disappeared which brought the nations of the Commonwealth together around a common table in the discussin of world issues. In simple words —if the League vanished, the Empire might also vanish; a bigger risk, indeed, than Lord Beaverbrook has yet discussed. This, no doubt, is well understood in London, where the emphasis on having a League settlement of the Italian question is being steadily maintained.