ENGLAND IN CRISIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1939, Page 7

ENGLAND IN CRISIS

AN AMERICAN’S IMPRESSIONS; ■— I NO SIGN OF PANIC. POSSIBILITIES OF WaR. / ' ; The tramp of marching feet on the ’ Continent has reverberated across the i mists of the Channel: today the Eng- ■ lish people are more politically con- | scions than they have been for many | years, states Virginia Cowles, who re- | cently toured England. In sleepy vil- I lages housewives turn on the radio to ■ hear the latest news bulletin, and at ! the local public house conversation I veers from speculation on the races to ' Hitler's next move. Army trucks rum- j ble through the, peaceful countryside, and in the local grocery stores you secNational Service placards and large yellow posters saying: “Join the Balloon Barrage.” Once again the English people are facing the possibility of war. What do they think about it? On a trip which I took with another American friend through the industrial centres to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and back through Yorkshire to London wo sampled a cross-section of public opinion. We talked with factory-workers, dock-labourers, and farmers. We found the people reluctant, to think war inevitable, but the possibility was discounted by no one.

HITLER BREAKS HIS WORD. We had a discussion on the subject in an inn near Manchester. In one room the air was blue with smoke, and a group of men were playing darts, but at a table near the bar three men and two women were drinking their beer and discussing the events of the day. We introduced ourselves into the conversation by saying that we were .Americans and were anxious about conditions in Europe. One of the men, a textile worker, immediately adopted a paternal air and told us not to worry: everything would be all right. The second man looked doubtful. He said he didn’t like to appear pessimistic, but he was bound to confess that conditions were not too good. He went on to add that he had been optimistic in September, but now things were different. ‘'You see, - ’ he explained, “Hitler’s broken his word.” His wife, a small woman in a dark blue dross, nodded vehemently, and said that “with a chap like that you couldn’t tell the outcome.” She said she had no wish to tell other people how to run their countries, but she thought there was something wrong with the newsreel pictures that showed everyone cheering the dictators. If things were so good, she asked, why did so many refugees beg to stay in England? Her girl friend nodded, and said it was wicked to think that Queen Geraldine had been driven out of her own home, and the baby only three days old. PATIENCE ALMOST EXHAUSTED. The first man finished off his beer and said there was no doubt about it, it was time these fellows stopped running over Europe as if they were Napoleons. England did not want a war, but people’s patience was about exhausted. “Particularly,” his friend reminded him, “now that we can’t trust them any more.” Although the possibility of war has become a reality, we found no sign of panic. The calmness of the stolid English workers was reflected over and over again by the simple phrase: "If it comes, it comes; but what’s the use of worrying?” We found the country solidly united behind the Government, chiefly on the grounds that Mr Chamberlain had shown his desire to keep trouble from starting by flying to Germany in September. A farmer in Yorkshire explained that Mr Chamberlain was a man of peace; if he couldn’t keep the country out of war, who could? We heard only one criticism of the Prime Minister, and that was from a waiter in Birmingham. He said he thought Chamberlain was “too trusting.” He went on to explain that foreigners had a queer mentality. Ho knew, because he had been in the Navy and had seen a lot of strange people; but the Prime Minister, he declared, was used to. dealing with people he could depend upon, and that was the cause of half the trouble. “Foreigners,” he explained, “are always unreliable —except the Americans,” he added quickly. "What do you think your country will do?” FOREIGN POLICY. On the whole, as I say, we found no criticism of the nation’s foreign policy. The majority of people shared the belief that even though things did not appear to bo going well at times, most foreign information was confidential and the public was in no position to judge. They claimed that the Government always had “a trick up their sleeve.”

When we inquired as to whether they thought conscription would be a good idea, the answer was generally in the negative. This was not due to an unwillingness to help, but to the fact that most people seemed to feel that conscription would bo an insult to their patriotism. Two dock workers in

Newcastle explained that England did not have to force its people to serve their country. “When the first bomb falls,” one of them cheerfully explained, “we’ll flock to the Colours.” When we asked whether they did not think it was wise to receive some training in advance, one of them said he'd had four years’ training in the last war, and if that wasn’t training, he didn’t know what was. The second agreed, and said there was no point in playing at being a soldier; either you were or you weren't, and when things 'started there was plenty of time to begin; then he proudly explained that England was always a slow starter, and lost every battle but the last. The belief in British invulnerability was shared from one end of the country to the other. The possibility of being asked- to engage, in warfare was accepted as an unpleasant task which had to be faced, but the outcome was regarded as certain as the setting of the sun;' indeed, when I asked one old lady in Westmorland whether anyone was worried for fear England should not emerge victorious, she was so startled she felt she hadn’t heard correctly. She cupped her hand to her ear and asked me to repeat myself, then she leaned back in her rocker, and cried: “Oh, dear, no; what a strange idea!” She confessed it was a thought that had never occurred to her before; then, slowly and patiently, like a teacher talking to a child, she explained that England always won. As I looked at this old lady in her ■neat black dress. I realised that in her lifetime she’d scon three wars. Her courage and her patience, combined with her strange stubborn independence, suddenly seemed symbolic of the English people as a whole. I was reminded of the fact that it was this same stolid stock that had given the American nation its birth; and although I was unable to answer- her when she asked what part America would play in the event of a war, 1 felt that the warning voice across the Atlantic that claimed it would be a mistake for the aggressor nations to bank on American isolation should certainly be heeded.