Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1939. A DEFENCE OF APPEASEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1939. A DEFENCE OF APPEASEMENT

IF he was adequately and accurately reported, Mr S. M. Bruce, X Australian High Commissioner in London, made out. an extremelv poor case in his defence of the policy of appeasement when he'addressed the Millions Club in Sydney a day.or two ago. Mr Bruce contended that a policy of outlawing the dFctators, substituted for appeasement, would have meant a consolidation of the German people behind their dictator and the cementing of the Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany, Italy ami Japan into a formal military alliance.

AVhat has happened with the policy of appeasement tried out to its limits, however, is that Germany and Italy have developed an extremely close and aggressive military alliance —an alliance into which Japan certainly will be brought if that course seems timely and profitable to the European totalitarian States. For the time at least, too, the success of the dictators in external policy has enabled them to strengthen their hold on the peoples-over whom they rule. The policy of appeasement has “one a long way towards producing the results Mr Bruce says°would have been produced by the alternative policy ot outlawing the dictators.

From this most unconvincing opening, Mr Bruce went on to argue, by wav of some remarkably contradictory assertions and contentions, that a stage was being approached at which,

when it became apparent that the dictators could no longer attain their aims by force, the way would be open for an improvement of the world position. The armed strength oi the democracies would constitute a real instrument for the promotion of policies of political and economic appeasement and progressive disarmament.

Exactly how this happy progress is supposed to work out is not clear, but a number of the grounds on which Mr Bruce expects it, to work out, are palpably erroneous.

He said, for instance, that it must be conceded that even the dictators had set out to ensure the economic and social welfare of their people. It is in fact impossible to concede anything of the kind. There is plain evidence that the economic and social welfare of the people of Germany, and of the people of Italy, has been sacrificed and subordinated deliberately for the sake of piling up maximum armaments and organising the nations for war. . It could be conceded that the dictators “set out to ensure the economic and social, welfare of their people” only if it were assumed that the social and economic welfare of Germans and Italians demands that they should be organised as lighting hordes, and that a large proportion of them should be underfed and overworked in furtherance of that aim.

One of Mr Bruce’s observations was that it must be recognised that every country was entitled to determine its ownA’orm of internal government. This is perfectly true, but it has no bearing whatever on the- problems by which the democracies are confronted in their dealings with the Nazi and Fascist dictatorships. What did Mr Bruce mean when he said it was the duty of the British Empire and other democracies “1o live side by side with the Nazism of’Germany, the Fascism of Italy and the Communism of Russia?” Did he mean that no account should be taken of what he himself called “aggression, brutality and defiance of treaties by certain Powers?” Is it suggested, that is to say, that any and every standard of morality worthy of the name should be discarded or set aside for the sake of seeking friendship- with the totalitarian States? . ■ ■

Every country, as Mr Bruce said, is entitled to determine its own form of government, but Germany is denied that right by the Nazis and Italy by the Fascists. In both countries liberty has been overthrown by a combination of circus polities and the rule of brute force. That, perhaps, is not the business of the democracies, but is as much to be said of the fayt that the morals of the thieves’ kitehen have been imported by the totalitarian States into the treatment of international affairs? If it is right that murder and theft should be repressed in a law-abiding community is it not also right that international brigandage should be condemned and opposed by self-respecting democracies ?

It speaks for itself that a man as able and well-informed as Mr Bruce is able to offer no better defence than he did of the policy- of appeasement. The truth seems to be that what has heen called a policy of appeasement is in fact nothing else than a police of temporising, adopted by the democracies because they did not feel themselves prepared to resist the crime on an international scale of which the dictatorships have been guilty. If this postponement of a stand against aggression was inevitable, as it may have been, its consequences none the less have been deplorable in enabling the dictatorships to enlarge their military resources and open up new opportunities of making mischief in the world. With Republican resistance in Spain on Ihe point of collapse, the results of the policy of appeasement are more than sufficiently emphasised.