Evening star., 1936-02-16
BRITAIN HAS HER DOUBTS
ON FIGHTING FOR LEAGUE
Dream of an Effective Geneva Front
Might Fade Before Realities, Says
Noted English Observer.

the intervening desert with its one
shore road, but could not be provis-
ioned in the fact of a hostile British
fleet.
Nevertheless. the responsible British
authorities felt that there might be
something in these menaces; Italy,
with 10000 nationals In Egypt, has
long wistfully talked of replacing a
weak British control. Britain there
fore sent her fleet to the Mediterra-
mean. In view of the danger to Malta,
she needd the use of the French naval
ports, such as Toulon and Bonifacio.
But France was the new friend of
Italy; French cooperation could be
secured only by compelling it under
the League, which France had a ma
jor interest in preserving. Therefore
the League was invoked. Also. as a
matter of internal politics, the Bald
win government had been much per-
turbed by the overwhelming response
to the peace ballot" organized by the
League Of Nations Union. (Do you
want war and a bomb on your bed?
Yes, or Mo-
MussoIini Called the Bluff.
The invocation of the League was a
bluff. MuSSolini called the bluff by
threatening an attack on the British
fleet and bases if the League imposed
oil sanctions" The Hoare-Laval
proposals were the result.
But the British government had en-
tirely underestimated the extent to
which, partly by itself, the British
public had been propagandized to ar
dent belief in the League. In some
degree it was the naturalization of a
defensive instinct. Britain has dis
armed to point which makes "col-
lective security" essential. The fleet,
powerful for a concentrated fleet ac-
ton, is no longer numerous enough to
guard the food routes. Thinking of
the huge air fleets so terribly close on
the continent, an Englishman can no
longer sleep quietly in his bed.
Partly springing from this sense of
insecurity and partly exploiting it, the
League of Nations Union, whose men,
bership comprises every shade of po-
itical opinion, from conservatism to
revolutionary socialism, has become a
gigantic organization. Thanks to its
unceasing propaganda, a very large
percentage of English men and wom-
en- have come to believe that the
League is the sole possible instrument
for preserving peace.
To that, in this present instance,
one must add the vast organized in
fluence of the trade unions. less con-
cerned with the principles of the
League than with the possibility of
smashing Mussolini, the smasher of
''internationale" trade unions in
Italy. and thus incidentally weakening
the nascent germ of facism in Eng
land.
Added to that, there is the influence
of Soviet Russia, potent not only
among the reds, but among the pinks,
piping pretty little choruses whose sig
nif1cance they do not understand.
Whatever else of right or wrong Mus
solini> may have done. he summarily
Ak4CIhCO lu4AbdllI III 4Idly
at a moment when the whole of Eu-
rope might have disintegrated into
revolution. The downfall of Mussolini
would produce chaos by which the
Soviet camarilla-of which the COMM
tern is only temporarily in abeyance-
could not fail to profit.
Storm of Protest Unexpected.
The storm of protest which assailad
the Baldwin government over the
Hoare-Laval proposals was entirely
unexpected in its mass and vehe-
mence. Very few of the British people
had any clear notion of the issues
involved-in every country the mass
of the people is happily ignorant of
the dangerous explosives its diplomats
habitually render innocuous. But they
were swept by mass-emotion, mass
indignation inconceivable to one who
was not then in England. The Ark of
the Covenant was in danger. The
League had come to be mystic SYM
Dol of world peace-and the British,
like the American, like all people who
have nothing to gain from war, are
peace-loving to the depths of their
souls. Nobody really wants to be
bombed or gassed. Everybody wants
to get quietly on with his business.)
In that mystic passion to protect
the symbol of peace, to make it ef-
fcient. paradoxically its enthusiasts
clamored for the extreme of sane
tions" against the wicked aggressor,
despite the quasi-certainty, at least
the grave risk, that they would pre-
cipitate a European war.
For this has come to be a mat
ter of the good" against the
wicked" That mass championship
of the League had nothing to do
with the protection of British imperial
interests against hypothetical Italian
designs. It derived from no affection
for the barbarous, slave-raiding Abys-
sinians. 1t was a matter of pure
doctrine. It was a religious move
ment, loftily idealistic, as all religious
must be, divorced from
cold reason, not counting the cost.
The League of Nations, impercepti-
bly,, had come to be cult in Britain.
It had come to be as respectable"
an evidence of correct thought and
morals, to applaud at a League of
Nations Union meeting as in the last
century it was to go to church and
subscribe to the 80 articles, save that
the devotees represented a vastly
greater percentage of the nation.
This may be very good thing. It
is certainly a phenomenon of far
reaching consequences. Whether or
not Italy, in desperation, like Sam
son in his agony, pulls down the
pillars of the European temple, the
fact remains that, for the symbol of
the League, British public opinion
can be mobilized for irresistible, If
quite blind, action. That is a serious
NnScihi1itv