CAN CHAMBERLAIN SAVE BRITAIN THE LESSON OF MUNICH

CAN CHAMBERLAIN SAVE BRITAIN THE LESSON OF MUNICH
by Collin Brooks

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Text extracted from opening pages of book: CAN SAVE BRITAIN? The Lesson of Munich By COLLIN BKOOKS 1938 EYKE T SPOTTISWOODE First printed Y1 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR J rtfY spomswooDE ( PUBLISHERS) UMIT. J r / U CONTENTS PAGE Foreword vii CHAPTER I. Britain at Hazard i II. Towards Bankruptcy 15 III. The Perversion of Parliament . . . . 28 IV. The Fiasco of Disarmament . . . . 46 V. The Tragedy of Edenism .. .-57 VI. The Insanity of Sanctions . . ... 72 VII. The Hoare-Laval Incident .. .-93 VIII. The Emergence of Hitler .. . . 108 IX. Britain Degraded 133 X. Britain and Spain 152 XL The End of Edenism 168 XII. The Cost of War and the Price of Peace 185 XIII. Mandates 200 XIV. Whither Britain? 212 XV. The Power of the Premier .. .. 232 Index . . . . . . . . 245 FOREWORD ^ I ^ HE Four Power Conference of Munich in { September 1938 gave to the world either an uneasy postponement of conflict or the prom ise of a lasting peace. There have been many interpretations placed upon it. Many will agree with the Prime Minister that the most vital aspect of his three visits to Germany was the demonstration that the German people want peace, despite the militarism of the regime under which they live. Others will agree that Munich showed that the heads of & quot; Democratic& quot; States can talk directly and with amicable results with the heads of Totalitarian States. All must be aware that it was a demonstration of the real power of Germany, since for the third time the Prime Minister of Great Britain flew hurriedly to the presence of the ruler of Germany in an effort to persuade him not to make war, bringing with him the Premier of France and at Britain s solicitation the Duce of Italy. Palatable or unpalatable, the fact is that ill-prepared and loosely organised democratic States waited upon well-prepared and tightly-organised Totalitarian States. Before the advent to power of Herr Hitler my published writings on national affairs were critical of the power of Parliament, that is of the Parliamentary vii viii FOREWORD system as we have come to work it, to protect Britain from disaster, whether military or economic. After the rise of Herr Hitler, that view was uttered more and more stridently by me. As early as 1935 I incurred great odium by publishing in a popular newspaper a frank plea for National Service. As early as 1934 I am a little amazed to find in the very mild forum of The Bookman, least controversial of papers, I was urging that democracy must spell national doom in the face of Hitlerism, Throughout 1936, both in the daily Press and the strongly con trasted pages of The English Review, I declared in the face of much ridicule that Britain economically was again infested with the virus of 1929. This book repeats and develops all that I wrote in those earlier years. It is a book written in the sincere conviction that the prime need of the world is peace, and that of all nations Great Britain can least afford war. It is written in the belief that the economic no less than the military circumstances of Great Britain have radically changed during the past two genera tions, and that the change of circumstances demands a change of policy if Britain is to survive as the heart of a great Empire. There is much in the pages that follow which can be glibly labelled & quot; defeatism& quot; or stamped as lack of patriotism. In stating and asking others to face unpleasant truths I am conscious of neither defeatism nor lack of patriotism. On the contrary, I believe that those Parliamentarians and publicists in the Press who have misled the public as to the relative FOREWORD ix military strengths of the nations and the relative economic soundness of Britain and her trade rivals will, in the light of coming events, incur the gravest responsibility. They will have helped to leave the nation unprepared for facts very different from the more palatable fancies woven from complacent imaginations. In the Spring of 1938 I published a small book calle

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