When Will This War End?

A Review

BY

R. W. Robson

THERE is much foolish twittering among uninformed people who expect an earl*' end of the war, and a return of that peace for which we all long. Men are feverishly planning new business ventures, “to take care of the boom which the Yanks will organise in the Pacific.” Such fools are dangerous.

We have travelled far since the black days of 1940, when a battered but unconquerable Britain faced the Axis alone. Germany now is on the defensive, and her end is certain. But those who imagine that we can achieve victory, and our essential freedom, without undergoing sacri fices and sufferings which will make the past three years seem like a picnic, are deliberately closing their eyes against plain, inescapable facts.

WE still have to smash the Axis, completely and permanently.

There can be no security for our children’s children, no progress in human decencies, no real freedom in the world, while people like Germans and Japs, with swashbuckling habits and a totalitarian mentality, can plot together and arm against us. We may not exterminate them; but we can and must control, for at least two generations, the education of their children.

The Axis now is on the defensive— but it is far, very far, from defeat.

Apart from the Russian front, the war against Hitler, in a military sense, has not started yet. We have had victories in North Africa, but that fighting is but preparatory, a mere incident compared with what must come, if Hitler’s armies are to be broken.

We—with good reason—are putting our confidence in our growing air power. Hitler, with equally good reason, is putting his faith in sub marines. These are the most critical days yet in the long-drawn-out Battle of the Atlantic. Unless those U-boat packs are conquered, America’s vast water-borne transport system may be disorganised, and the Allies’ plans for the opening of the Second Front may be gravely interfered with.

Russia, though she has done mag nificently, did not achieve what she set out to do in her Winter Campaign.

She has regained most of what she lost in 1942, but not the valuable areas which the Nazis occupied in 1941. Russia’s ability to drive the Germans farther westward in the coming European summer depends upon the opening of a Second Front by the Allies. The Russians can drive back the Germans in winter; but the Germans, if not attacked in the west, probably can drive back the Russians in summer.

That is the position in Europe. Far more depends upon the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic than upon the Battle of Tunisia.

SIMILARLY, the Japanese are un beaten. They represent a military problem even more difficult than that of Germanv. Germany has been mauled and weakened the Russians, and fearfully battered by the RAF.

If American power can be concen trated beside British newer in Western Europe, we mav hope for much, and fairly soon, perhaps.

But Japan’s army and navy, as yet, have suffered no weakening defeat —

although her air force has been very seriously knocked about. Japan’s weakness is industrial—her ability to build planes, tanks, ships, etc., is limited. Eventually, she will be beaten by machines. But she is seek ing already to meet that threat by most intensive exploitation and organisation of her new Indonesian Empire.

The war will not end with the defeat of Germany. It may be pro longed for a year or two, while we deal with Japan.

HOWEVER, suppose the war is over.

What then? Now, we must transfer millions and millions of voung men from intensively-organ ised and disciplined fighting services to the comparatively uncontrolled and undisciplined life of private citizens, while at the same time hundreds of thousands of young women will be returning from regi mented industry to home life.

This will not be done in a month, or a year; and it inevitably will be attended by far-reaching social and industrial uneasiness. There is going to be no love lost between the masses of service-men, who have been striv ing and dying for a few shillings a day, and the stay-at-home industrial masses, who may not continue to enjoy high wages rates at the ex pense of the fighters.

THE next great problem will not be the restoration of industry, com merce and trade, but the rescue of the world from starvation. Long before hostilities cease, the terrible famines which we now know to exist in China and Greece will have ap peared in other countries. The thing is inevitable. To-day, Germany is

contriving somehow to provide the occupied countries with just enough food to keep them functioning, be cause Germany cannot carry on without their industrial help; but when Germany collapses, God help the 200,000,000 people in German occupied countries!

The United Nations may have to maintain a kind of wartime control over the whole world for a couple of years, while tens of millions of people are fed and assisted to become self supporting again. It obviously would be absurd to attempt to return quickly to the normal trade and in dustrial activities of peacetime, while half the world is starving.

Therefore what appears the greatest of our post-war tasks, the restoration of industry, trade and commerce, with which necessarily is linked the re storation of normal peacetime life, cannot be undertaken until the Axis is broken, demobilisation is well under way, and the world’s food production restored. Can even the most fatuous optimist see these things accom plished within a period of some years?

LET us suppose that the Axis menace is gone, millions of men are going quietly back to civilian life, and famines have been averted or conquered. Is it to be supposed that domestic industries and international trade will function as before? They certainly will not.

Millions of industrialist wage earners, accustomed to much more money than in the pre-1939 period, will reject the pre-1939 wage scales and margins. Millions of ex-service men, who have borne the heavier sacrifices of the war periods, will in sist upon having a larger share in peacetime amenities.

The pre-1939 conditions, which per mitted offensive luxury alongside bitter poverty, which made no pro vision for the accidents of unemploy ment and sickness, and the uncertain ties of old age, will not be allowed to continue; if they do, there will be revolt. That means an early chal lenge to the evils that mainly bred poverty and social injustice—such things as hereditary wealth, uncon trolled land ownership, trade mono polies, the tyranny of money-power.

Wealth and privilege will fight to the death to retain those things. All the wisdom and strength of our leaders will be needed to prevent our United Nations, in rejecting the social and economic evils of pre-1939, swinging away to experimental Communism, and hamstringing private enterprise, which is the mainspring of our national life.

THAT is the politico-social side. But, in the mechanics of trade and industry themselves, consider the far reaching readjustments to be made.

Before 1939, international trade and exchange had become sorted out into as prettv a collection of tariff enclosed tomfoolery as had ever been seen in history; America insisting on selling goods to the world but refus

ing to accept the world’s goods, and thus accumulating the greatest store of gold in the annals of civilisation; every currency in the world, except the US dollar, “off” gold, but pegged to the dollar; Britain trying to re concile her mass of world-wide investments and her vast transport machinery with a repudiation of free trade and a nominal repudiation of the gold standard; France trying to maintain her place beside Fascist Germany and Communist Russia, while officially adopting the 40-hours week—there is no end of them.

All the problems implicit in the readjustment of these matters must be solved before there can be any return to normal world trade and international peace. How long will their solution take? Probably years —so long that the present generation may pass on, and another and un instructed generation may take up the task, and so muddle it that the groundwork will be laid for bigger and better wars. That was what hap pened between 1919 and 1939.

However, there are two definite facts to comfort us. One is that the Americans have learned their lesson —they will not again run away, as they did in 1919, from the world peace obligations which are forced upon them by the size and im portance of the United States. They will carry the job through. The second is that when peace returns, the world will be so desperately short of manufactured goods, and there will be so much to do in repairing war damage, that all workers will be kept engaged for several years; and, dur ing that breathing spell, the nations of the world, led by the United States and the British Empire, will have a chancq to iron out a thousand obstacles to permanent world peace.

Encouraged by one or two 1 reasonably good forecasts in recent years, I am tempted to make another:— 1943. —Collapse of Italy and Germany. 1944. —Forces of British, Americans and Russians occupy all European coun tries. policing the Axis countries pending the defeat of Japan, assist ing friendly countries (France, Hol land, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Czecho-slovakia, Greece, Jugoslavia) to restore law and order, and feeding the starving populations. Powerful forces diverted against Japan. 1945.—Defeat of Japan; occupation of Japan and of Indonesia by forces of United Nations. Partial withdrawal of Allied forces from friendly coun tries of Europe, as their administra tive and economic systems are restored. United Nations begin enor mous task of repatriation and demobilisation of their armed forces.

Organisation of Peace Conference. 1946.—Peace Conference. Repatriation and demobilisation of United Nations forces proceeds steadily, keeping pace with the restoration of their industry and trade; but they still are obliged to maintain substantial forces in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, Japan, Indonesia, and other enemy territory, pending Peace Con ference settlements.

That represents three more years of war conditions —and I think that that

Is optimistic. Until we see Germany reeling back from the opening of a second front in Europe, there is no prospect of the collapse of Germany in 1943.