Germany’s Future in
p. 54 · Read in the full issue
the Pacific Will There be Union With Japan?
SOME short while ago the subject of Germany re-entering the Pacific was mooted in these columns. The bias of the article was distinctly, if guardedly, favourable, and at first sight there seems much to support that attitude.
But only at first sight.
The old sabre-rattling Junker Germany is admittedly dead. Potsdam haute ecole has become Munich basse ecole. But the same aggressive imperialism which coloured the former still tints the latter under its brown shirt.
Individually, we have no prejudices.
The characteristics which we have grown to assdciate with certain nationalities are so minutely present in each member that we hardly notice them at all. It is only when the individuals of a nation come together to form a national herd that we begin perhaps to dislike them.
The Germans one meets casually, in the Islands and elsewhere, are excellent fellows —on their own. Collectively, how ever, they immediately acquire a “na tional consciousness,” becoming, as ardent Nazis, a menace to world peace just as potent as their pre-war prototypes.
Nazism is the antithesis of inter nationalism. Broadly interpreted, it means “Germany for the Germans, and as much else as can be acquired.” It is a militant race-conscious fever running a dangerously high temperature.
If Germany returns to the Pacific she will do so as a strong Nazi-Fascist influence.
It is true that neither the Samoans nor the Marshall Islanders are likely to be come “Hitlerised.” If that were the only consideration, there would be no argu ment. Similarly, if sane administration was the focus of attention, there would be even less to say, since it is almost impossible to imagine a more hopeless muddle than has been made by New Zea land over the Mandated Territory of Samoa.
Unfortunately, the situation is rather more complicated.
The two great forces in world politics to-day are Fascism and Communism—the latter typified by the U.S.S.R. Between these two diametrically opposed prin ciples the war clouds are as surely gathering as they gathered in 1914, and every indication points to an alliance be tween Imperialist Japan and Fascist Germany, both bent upon the same ob jective (the expansion of their frontiers) but with the interests of neither con flicting.
Given naval and military bases in the Pacific, Germany would be in a unique position to aid Japan, and, granted that such an alliance matured successfully, what would be the probable result? Ger many, as her share, would recover the “Polish corridor” plus a substantial cut of Soviet territory; while Japan would not only annex further Pacific holdings (she has already declared her intention of retaining the Mandated Islands), but would also acquire complete commercial and strategic possession of these waters.
The question is not one of whether communist Russia should or should not be attacked, but rather of the effect of such an attack on neutral peoples. Any move which tends to increase the pos sibilities of war and the further extension of Asiatic influence in the Pacific is a grave error to be avoided at all costs, particularly at the trifling one of a little false sentiment over the return of the ex-German colonies.
The possible reply to this, that in the event of a successful campaign Germany would guarantee the protection of exist ing interests, is all “boloney,” for in these days of political realism nobody has much serious consideration for those who are too weak, or who have let slip the oppor tunity, to help themselves.