April 3, 1936
It is a mistake to suppose that the problem of averting another European or probably a world war depends to any important extent either upon the reply which Herr Hitler has made to the Locarno Powers, or to staff conversations now decided upon between Great Britain and France or Belgium. Herr Hitler is continuing his efforts to separate Great Britain from France, and also to separate British public opinion from the British Government and House of Commons. The British Government, on the other hand, is anxious to comfort France in view of the great restraint which France, largely in deference to British wishes, has observed in presence of the German breach of treaties and military reoccupation of the Rhine zone. The realities are far larger and more profound than either of these moves upon the diplomatic chessboard.
First stands the rapid and tremendous rearmament of Germany, which is proceeding night and day and is steadily converting nearly seventy millions of the most efficient race in Europe into one gigantic, hungry war-machine. The second is that the recent actions of Germany have destroyed all confidence in her respect for treaties, whether imposed as the result of defeat in war or freely entered into by post-War Germany and confirmed by the Nazi regime. The third is that practically the whole of the German nation has been taught to regard the incorporation in the Reich of the Germanic population of neighbouring states as a natural, rightful and inevitable aim of German policy. The fourth is that the financial and economic pressures in Germany are rising to such a pitch that Herr Hitler's government will in a comparatively short time have only to choose between an internal and an external explosion.
Anyone who bears these terrible and sombre realities constantly in mind will acquire that sense of proportion without which the daily gestures and speeches of rulers, politicians and diplomatists are liable to be merely misleading. All who have acquired this indispensable standard of judgment will see that the issue which is open is not really one between Germany and France, nor between Germany and the Locarno Powers. It is an issue between Germany and the League of Nations. Indeed, expressed in its most searching terms, it is a life and death struggle between the Nazi regime in Germany and the principles of the Covenant of the League of Nations reiterated by the Kellogg Pact.
It therefore concerns all nations, including the German people themselves: but it concerns them all in very different degrees. The countries which lie upon or near the borders of Germany are in the front line. They see the wonderful roads along which four columns of troops or motor vehicles can move abreast, brought to their own frontier terminals. They dwell under the flickering shadow of the most fearful sword ever wrought by human agency, now uplifted in flashing menace, now held anew to the grindstone. Those that are more remote from the German arsenals and training-centres have naturally a greater sense of detachment. But none, even though protected by the oceans can, as experience of the last war proved, afford to view with indifference the processes which are already in motion.
The dear desire of all the peoples, not perhaps even excluding a substantial portion of the German people themselves, is to avoid another horrible war in which their lives and homes will be destroyed or ruined and such civilisation as we have been able to achieve reduced to primordial pulp and squalor. Never till now were great communities afforded such ample means of measuring their approaching agony. Never have they seemed less capable of taking effective measures to prevent it. Chattering, busy, sporting, toiling, amused from day to day by headlines and from night to night by cinemas, they yet can feel themselves slipping, sinking, rolling backward to the age when 'the earth was void and darkness moved upon the face of the waters.' Surely it is worth a supreme effort-the laying aside of every impediment, the clear-eyed facing of fundamental facts, the noble acceptance of risks inseparable from heroic endeavour-to control the hideous drift of events and arrest calamity upon the threshold. Stop it! Stop it!! Stop it now!!! NOW is the appointed time.
When, on that Friday night three weeks ago, Herr Hitler, against the advice of his generals, ordered his redoubtable troops to march through the 'scraps of paper' to occupy and entrench the Rhineland, he set in motion a trend of events which offered nothing less than blessing or cursing to mankind. Which fate shall befall us rests no longer with him, but with the world. The world, nay, Europe alone, is overwhelmingly strong compared to any single member of its family. But there must be Concert and Design guided by far-sighted unselfishness and sustained by inexorable resolve. This is no task for France; no task for Britain; no task for the Locarno Powers or any group of Powers; no task for small Powers nor for great; it is a task for all. The means are at hand; the occasion has come. There may still be time.
Let the States and peoples who lie in fear of Germany carry their alarms to the League of Nations at Geneva. Let the greatest among them lead the way and marshal the assembly. Let none be a laggard or a doubter. Let the League, if satisfied that their fears are well-founded, authorise, nay, adjure them, to take forthwith all necessary measures for mutual protection, and require them to stand in readiness alike to submit themselves to, or, if need be, enforce the reign of international law. Let us have, in the words of a writer in The Times: 'A block of peaceable but resolute nations determined to make a stand against aggression in any form.' Let the League then address Germany collectively, not only upon her treaty breaches but also upon her own grievances and anxieties, and, above all, upon her armaments. Let Germany receive from united nations a guarantee of the inviolability of her own soil unless she invades the soil of others. Let unchallengeable power and fair play march hand in hand. Let us move forward by measured steps, without haste and without rest, to a faithful and a lasting settlement in accordance with the general need.