FRANCE AND BRITAIN
[To the Editor of Tun SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I notice that Professor Delisle Burns uses the term " Europeans " to describe dwellers on the Continent in Contradistinction to us islanders. It seems to me the one blemish on an admirable letter.
The point may seem unimportant. But, personally, I am convinced that the root cause of present troubles is the islanders' disinclination to acknowledge their essentially European character and assume the responsibilities that derive from that fact. For, despite persistent clash of nationalisms harnessed to the State as repository of power, a federal union of Europe is in the womb of contemporary history, as M. Briand saw ; only it cannot be brought forth until and unless Britain plays the role of midwife.
It is quite true, as Professor Delisle Burns says, that for the British the conception of the League as a system of security within Europe—and let the rest of the world look after itself—is, and must be, inadequate ; but it is inadequate and not wrong. Surely it is this country's duty and privilege to exploit its dual personality, as an integral element of the European system no less than as an instrument of Imperial and world integration ; the two things are not mutually exclusive, as is frequently suggested.
France, whatever may have been the shortcomings of her policy, has time and again stated correctly the problem of peace : establishment—for Europe in the first place—of an international authority overriding national claims to self-help. And she has repeatedly set forth the pattern of institutions— international air police, European air transport service, &c.— appropriate to a twentieth-century world. In her vision of a federated Europe she has the ungrudging support of every one of the so-called small States where men can think for themselves. She only asks for our support, without which, as the Disarmament Conference showed, there can be no edifice of international security—and therefore no process of dis- armament : the tragedy is that the islanders are tarrying so long in learning to " speak European." They still seek to fob her off with phrases about the super-state and all-in war which would disgrace the intelligence of a fifth-form boy. (And let no one begin to revile France for the Laval policy in the matter of the Abyssinian war ; it has yet to be shown that the British Government was prepared to go beyond the feckless—and belated—economic pressure on Italy, which has proved a useless gesture.)—I am, yours, &c.,
Previous page
