WHAT WE SHOULD FIGHT FOR
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
am an ordinary working man, which in my part of Great Britain means an unemployed man. I fought in the Great War, and I suppose I shall fight in the war that is expected now, if it comes. So I think your readers may be interested to know what I and many others of my sort are thinking.
We are thinking that at Munich we were finally and definitely let down.
I love my wife and children, and I would give my life to save them, and so I am sure would Mr. Neville Chamberlain. But the other day he didn't give his life or mine, he gave other people's lives, to save Mrs. Chamberlain and their children and grandchildren and mine. He sacrificed Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt and their children and grandchildren, when he handed over the Socialists, Jews, Christians and Pacifists, in the Sudetenland, to their persecutors. His excuse was that they were people we " knew so little about." But we knew enough about them to admit Czechoslovakia to our " Inter- national Club for mutual protection against gangsters," and while he was a member of that club he played the game in a most sporting manner. When gangsters came along and demanded his person he said, " Look here, you fellows ! I don't want to make trouble. I'll hand over every penny I've got so long as I'm left my liberty." While he was getting out his purse, we had a whispered colloquy with the gangsters, and next moment we had pushed him out, and locked the dcor on him.
I say " we " because it was my country, along with France, that did this dirty, mean, contemptible trick, a trick that earns the hatred of every true-hearted man and woman. Two years earlier we had played the same dirty trick on Abyssinia, a dark-skinned member of our Club, whom we had admitted to membership after much deliberation. When the gangsters came demanding his person we made a show of rallying to his defence, but we left the side door open so that they could snatch him. We are shortly to be asked to count him for dead as from Noveniber 15th, thOugh every time we go to the back door we hear" him screaming.
The effect of these ruthless betrayals on the ordinary plain man like me, is to make him hate and despise their perpetrators. It is useless to ask for a united country to face the Hitler-menace, while to those who will do the fighting, Hitler stands not only for himself and Mussolini, but also for Chamberlain and Halifax and Simon and Hoare. -I am ready to offer my life again for the cause for which I fought in the Great War, but it will be to fight against Hitler and Mussolini and against this crew of slimy hypocrites (for so they seem to me), these callous selfish holders-on to privilege, who are ready to betray me and mine (and already have betrayed us) because we too are people they " know so little about."
I will fight, under any leader who may arise in any country who will lead his armies to restore international decency, and what goes along with it, justice as between man and man at home—the right to lead a happy and useful life and to earn my bread in the sweat of my brow, and not any longer to be com- pelled to. rot inactive, half starved and always grumbling, like
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