WAR CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1938, Page 10

WAR CRISIS

BRITAIN'S INTEREST

A STABLE EUROPE

SIR ALFRED ZIMMERN'S VIEW

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, September 24.

One of the most, notable contributors to discussions in Australia during the last few weeks on the Czechoslovakian crisis has been Sir Alfred Zimmern, Professor of International Relationships at Oxford University, who has been attending the ' British Commonwealth Relations Conference. He has brought an illuminating mind and a huge common sense to bear upon the subject, and he has been in demand as a writer of newspaper articles and broadcaster. One of his best contributions was an address he made to the Constitutional Association here.

"The moment Germany re-armed and became once more a great Power," he said in this address, "the question arose whether Great Britain had an interest in preventing Germany from exercising a hegemony over the entire Continent. That is what we are up against today. It is obvious that the decision that British statesmen are facing is, whether to take an interest in Central and Eastern Europe as permanent as that which they have always taken in France, Belgium, and Holland. We have evaded that question for a long time. Now we have to say 'yes' or 'no' to the question whether the whole might of Britain will be used in certain circumstances to prevent the extension of German power over the whole of Europe." Sir Alfred Zimmern added that when the Kellogg Pact was " framed many people wondered what was the meaning of the phrase "War as an instrument of policy." Now, one had only to watch what was going on in Europe to realise its meaning. There was a classical example of the use of war and the threat of war to compel nations, to accept certain policies. EUROPE AFTER VERSAILLES. There was a great deal of misconception about the effects of the Versailles settlement. Sir Alfred Zimmern continuned. Some people thought it had turned Europe into a crazy quilt, and that the present trouble was the result. That . was absolutely against facts. The bad parts of the Peace Treaty, in fact, were the parts that it did not contain.- It did not deal with the economic situation, and the reparations agreement was very much muddled. But, on its political side, the Peace Treaty was infinitely better than the Europe of 1914. Up till then, the autocratic Powers were dominant, and millions of people were living under Governments that they detested. It was a mistake to think that the "Big Three" in 1919 could have made a peace that would not have humiliated Germany. The settlement made favoured the European minorities; it was on the basis of peoples controlling their own destinies. Many of those people had not managed very well to stand alone. They might have stood up better with economic help in the early days, but the fact remained that they were there, and that there would be no peace in Europe until its peoples were firmly set on,their feet. "You won't get anywhere by sane- j tioning a German or Russian hegemony," Sir Alfred Zimmern continued. "If you want a stable Europe, it must be a Europe in which the rights of nations, great and small, are safeguarded. Britain's interest in! Europe, is direct in the economic sense. We can't live on Ottawa alone. [We have immense trade interests in Europe, and when Europe is settled we are prosperous. But when Europe is unsettled Great Britain has vast unemployment, and there is a chronic state of crisis." COMPARISON OF RESOURCES. "We have never in our history guaranteed an inland Power," Sir Alfred Zimmern said, referring to British strategy. "We have always limited our commitments to parts where our sea power could operate. Today, in the short distance, Britain is weak. She has no expeditionary force or I army of the Continent type. But in the long distance we are terrifically strong, because of the extent of our natural resources. Compare, for example, the mineral resources of the British Empire with the natural re- j sources of Germany. Hitler would not be shaking his fist today if he had not imported vast quantities of nickel from the Canadian mines.

, "If there is a struggle between freedom and tyranny it will involve a considerable revision of our conceptions of economic policy. The dictatorship countries have made trade an annexe of militarism; their trade operations have become strategic operations. That represents an element in the strength of the free peoples that we should always have in the back of our minds. We hear a lot about 'haves' and 'havenots,' but the truth is that the free countries possess their resources, because enterprise and initiative flourish best under freedom. Thus, if we are all forced to stand together for freedom, the weapons we shall use will not be only, or mainly, the old military weapons. They will also be* economic weapons, and this is a matter in which you in Australia have a very direct interest."