The Undeclared World War of 1937-1940

NOWHERE in the world are inter national developments followed with closer attention than in the Pacific Territories. The Europeans there are sharply conscious of their isolation. They know that, if there is a war, Japan will be in it; and that it will be within the power of the Japanese, at first, to dis locate their transport and disturb the tenor of their lives.

But this long-continued suspense makes the Pacific communities impatient. “Why all this dithering and delay?” they ask.

“Why the backing and filling over Russia? Why the contradictory reports from America?” Why do the British stand for all this insolence from the cheeky little Japs? What is going on, anyway?”—and they suspect that some sinister and mysterious force (probably international money power) is in control of international affairs and shaping the current of our lives.

Actually, the international pattern is laid out very clearly, for all to see and read; and it provides a background and an explanation for most of what is hap pening. And the end of this nerve destroying anxiety is near. It is either explosive or appeasement.

It is the age-old struggle between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Britain and France, between them, hold a very large proportion of the world’s undeveloped and colonisable territory. Germany, Italy and Japan have little colonial territory and, for a variety of reasons, they want some of ours.

Economically, culturally, racially, those three Powers are far apart; but they are united in one purpose, which since 1937 has dominated their policies and coloured their dreams—namely, a hope that they can dismember the British and French Empires.

They are now fighting like furies in an undeclared war, designed to embarrass Britain and Prance and destroy the morale of our people. It is no accident that to-day we have intense Nazi activity in the Americas, and the Japanese forcing indignities upon the British in China, and Italian anti-British and anti-French propaganda among the forty millions of Arabic peoples who live in the Near East and North Africa, and a campaign of bomb-throwing in England, organised by Irish lunatics and financed by Germany.

FOR an explanation of Anglo-French unreadiness and fumbling, we must go back 20 years, to Versailles. The war was won through the sacrifices of patriots and soldiers; but the Treaty was made by little, visionless, non-combatant politicians, upon whom history will heap contumely and condemnation. The Treaty was conceived in the French spirit of revenge, and was born of political fools and cock-eyed theorists. Among many errors, the gravest was the imposition upon Germany and Austria of terms which were economically insane, and inter nationally criminal. The Central Powers could not pay a hundredth part of the “reparations” imposed; and, if they had paid the sums demanded, the economy of

the victorious nations would have been completely destroyed ... as was shown by what happened to the world when the European countries tried to pay their war debts to the United States.

For several years, the Central Powers lay, supine and wretched, under the Ver sailles Treaty. They were disarmed, and Britain and France also disarmed. This was the greatest opportunity of all time to create new and better international relations—to make the world really safe for democracy. Co-operation between Britain, America and France, then, would have rescued the Germanic peoples from their misery and hopelessness, and built up a Western European confederation which could have taken care of any threat to the established order, whether it came out of Russia or the Far East. But America remained aloof, and howled for repayment of her war loans (a pin-headed President of that era was responsible for the never-to-be-forgoten phrase: “Well, they hired the money, didn’t they?”); political crack-pots in Britain, blind and futile, played about with the still-boru League of Nations; and France plurlged into a decade of political upheavals and economic crises. The Germanic peoples were left to their misery.

INEVITABLY, out of this hideous post war muddle, came the dictatorships.

Led by strong men. acting swiftly, surely and ruthlessly, Germany reorgan ised and re-armed and Italy Joined her. while the' British and’French were still dithering and fumbling. Many British statesmen had warned the nations of what would come; but statesmen at that

period were not wanted—Britain was led to the very brink of disintegration and disaster by the calamitous Ramsay Mac donald.

Only just in time did Britain recognise the danger, and prepare for it. In fact, it was not in time. In 1938, when the German-Italian-Japanese challenge came, Britain and France were not ready, and only a combination of luck and skilled statesmanship kept them out of a war in which they would have been at a ter rible disadvantage. A year’s respite has been gained, and in that year Britain and France have completed their armaments, and have made defensive alliances with Poland and Turkey, and now are ready to meet any situation.

But the Germany which might have been brought into an honest bloc of Western democracies ten years ago is to day powerful and aggressive, and com pletely under the domination of the ego centric Hitler, and craves world domina tion; and lialy and Japan go gladly with her, in the hope that together they can tear down the Anglo-French Empires. rLE times are difficult, but we do not now face the dangers of 1938. Britain and France, with their new allies, now can take care of any situation likely to arise in Europe; and the dictators know it and, for that very reason, war is not likely to occur there. The insults and indignities heaped upon the British by the Japanese in China represent what may be the last, desperate attempt of the Berlin-Rome-Tokio Axis to force the de mocracies to fight on a battle-ground chosen by the Axis. Britain saw the trap, and side-stepped, and waited.

Why is Britain waiting, and for what?

Look at the international pattern, laid out clearly before you. If Germany moves again in Europe, she must fight Britain.

France, Poland and Turkey, with Rou mania and Greece, and probably Holland and Portugal in support, and only Italy to aid her. If Japan, in such circum stances, should move against the British and French, either Russia or the United States, or both may move against Japan.

If Japan’s hands were clear, she might risk it; but Japan, unhappily for her, is bogged in China. Her military and eco nomic condition is lamentable, and grow ing worse. The two incalculable factors are the United States (the world’s great est democracy) and Russia Uhe world’s greatest Communist State). We are not certain what either will do, in the event of a world war; but we are certain that neither will support the Axis.

The Axis Powers probably have de veloped their maximum strength in arma ments, but the democracies—now under stable governments, supported by a calm, steady and united public opinion—are by no means at their maximum. So they can afford to wait, and see what happens.

That seems to be their policy.

BY 1940, the dictators either will have put everything to the hazard, and marched to war; or they will have realised that their military threats, and their present world-wide propaganda at tack upon the morale of the democracies, have led nowhere. They then may admit that the only way in which to straighten out international injustices, and remove the iniquities of the Versailles Treaty, and create tolerable world conditions, is a round-table conference. There another attempt will be ihade. under conditions vastly different from 1919, to create a League of Nations, which may save us from the wide variety of horrors which now threaten us.

The anxiety and distress of these years, when we fear that at any moment a Y ar * may bre ?' li out, have taught the people to study international condi tions, In the British Empire to-day an overwhelming majority of people are for appeasement”—recognising that, in human affairs, it is not equitable that the good things of life, whether money, trade or territory, shall be held indefinitely by the Hayes, at the expense of the Have- Nots. If that better understanding leads to better international relations—and al ready there are some faint signs of it the Undeclared World War of 1937-40 will have been almost worth while