16 FEBRUARY 1940, Page 16

" But surely," I said, " did not we also

inaulge in similar escapism? Did we not say that Japan was justified in her Chinese policy, that the Abyssinians were slave-traders, that the Spanish Republicans murdered priests, that Germany had every right to occupy the Rhineland, that Dr. Benes had not observed the minority treaties, and that it was absurd to imagine that this country would ever go to war for Danzig? Surely our own spiritual dilemma, up till March sth last, was identical with the Americans'. today? Surely we have no right to criticise them for indulging in emotional and intellectual insincerities so similar to those in which, for so many years, we wallowed curselves? "