April 17, 1936
Where do we stand about Italy and Abyssinia?
The past unfolds a lamentable tale. When, last June, Mr. Baldwin became Prime Minister in name as well as in fact, his first step was to remove Sir John Simon from the Foreign Office and install in his stead one of his closest adherents, Sir Samuel Hoare. This accomplished Minister had at length succeeded in carrying into law the India Constitution Bill, upon which Mr. Baldwin's heart was set. His promotion to the Foreign Office meant not only a reward for his achievement, but a special mark of the confidence which his chief felt in him. In order, however, to preserve a most intimate control over foreign policy, Mr. Baldwin adopted the extraordinary experiment of having a second Foreign Office representative in the Cabinet. He appointed the youthful and able Mr. Anthony Eden to be Minister for League of Nations affairs. Such an arrangement was clearly unworkable except upon the basis that the Prime Minister himself would give constant personal guidance. Having practically made two Foreign Ministers, he was in a position to hold the balance between them and to control both. We are bound, therefore, to attribute to the Prime Minister a degree of responsibility even beyond what is inseparable from his high office. All the power was in his hands. Let us, then, recall the main features of his policy.
A General Election was approaching in which foreign affairs must play an abnormal part. Earlier in the year the League of Nations Union had taken a ballot at which no fewer than eleven million persons in Great Britain had voted in favour of active adherence to the Covenant of the League, and a large proportion in favour of making serious and even military exertions to enforce it. Upon this strong national impulse both Mr. Baldwin's Foreign Ministers pressed the case for sanctions against Italy to their utmost. Great Britain took the lead at Geneva. Mr. Eden fought a vigorous battle for sanctions upon the committees there, and whipped up the nations in support of the British view as if they were to vote in a lobby. Early in September, when the ground was thus prepared, Sir Samuel Hoare flew to Geneva and delivered an oration in favour of the enforcement of the Covenant, which was accepted not only throughout Europe, but all over the world, as one of the greatest declarations upon international affairs ever made since the days of President Wilson. He received the rapturous applause of all the small States at Geneva, and the support not only of all parties at home but of all the Dominions of the British Empire.
Mr. Baldwin's policy and Mr. Baldwin's Ministers were thus raised to the highest pinnacle, and British foreign policy became the cynosure of world attention. The prominent part Britain was taking against Italy galvanised the League of Nations into action, and more than fifty States imposed their censures and their sanctions upon the Italian aggressor. The Abyssinians were encouraged to a desperate resistance by the feeling that almost the whole world, and, above all, Great Britain, were behind them.
These steps excited the vehement resentment of Italy. Threats filled the Government-controlled Italian Press. It became urgently necessary to reinforce the British Fleet in the Mediterranean and to place all our important establishments in and around that inland sea upon a war-footing. As these movements of ships, troops and aeroplanes became apparent, the possibility of war between Great Britain and Italy suddenly broke upon the British public. The Labour Party and the trade unions by a large majority threw their weight behind the Government and its cause. They dismissed their pacifist leader, Mr. Lansbury, and were in fact split from end to end. In these circumstances the General Election was fought under the most favourable conditions for Mr. Baldwin. The electors returned an enormous majority in favour of his policy, and he reached a position of personal power unequalled by any Prime Minister since the close of the Great War.
It was therefore with an intense spasm of surprise and disgust that Parliament and the public found themselves confronted with the Hoare-Laval proposals to reward the Italian aggressor with a great part of Abyssinia. These emotions were stimulated by the fact that at that time the Italian campaign seemed to be at a standstill. Mr. Baldwin approved, and led his Cabinet in approving, the Hoare-Laval scheme, and he told the House of Commons that if his lips were unsealed, no man would vote against him. However, when several days later he felt the full tide of the public indignation, he forced his Foreign Secretary to resign and solemnly admitted he had made a mistake. He sought to placate the League of Nations Union and their eleven million ballotteers by placing Mr. Eden in sole control of the Foreign Office. He repudiated the Hoare-Laval proposals, and resumed the policy of limited sanctions from which he and Sir Samuel Hoare had recoiled on account of its great danger. From that moment we saw Mr. Baldwin and his Cabinet carrying out a policy which their better judgment told them was too dangerous.
Meanwhile France had been dragged so far by Great Britain upon the sanctions path that her good relations with Italy were sensibly injured. The so-called Stresa front was broken. Herr Hitler saw his opportunity, and ordered the German legions to reoccupy the Rhineland. A crisis of supreme magnitude thereupon developed, and henceforward dominates European affairs. Great Britain is forced by her treaties to range herself if necessary in defence of France and Belgium, and staff conversations are now being held upon the war plan. At the same time, by pursuing the policy of sanctions against Italy which had proved so popular in the autumn, she condemns herself to weaken France and strengthen the force and prestige of the German Nazi regime. We have thus been led during the last nine months into a contradiction of purpose as hazardous as it is grotesque. To persist in sanctions is certainly perilous and probably futile. To recede exposes Mr. Baldwin and his Ministers to a humiliation before all the world ludicrous if it were not tragical.
Meanwhile what has happened to the Negus and his barbaric Highland warriors? I shall not attempt to prophesy, but obviously the Italian armies have made immense unexpected progress in their campaign. Seared and suffocated by poison gas, mown down by machine-guns, battered by artillery, bombed from the air, the primitive military organisation of the Ethiopians is in fearful disarray. Can they last till the torrential rains begin? If so, can they maintain a guerrilla until the autumn? If they can, will Mussolini and his gold reserve stand the strain? And, in any case, what other events are going to happen in Europe during these months of ever-growing tension? Ought we to encourage Abyssinia by feeble and half-hearted sanctions to further resistance? Ought we, on the other hand, to become parties to a settlement on terms incomparably worse than those which excited British wrath in the Hoare-Laval agreement?
One thing stands out squarely from this disastrous tangle. The Government must not delay the conclusion of a peace, if the Negus is forced to it, even though its terms are profoundly repugnant and mortifying to British public opinion. They must not think of themselves or of their political position. Unless Mr. Baldwin is prepared to take some effective action which will actually help the Ethiopian people, and face the consequences of that action, whatever they may be, he and his Ministers should not presume to offer guidance to Europe.