LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep: their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over these bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must be accompanied by the name and address of the author, which will be treated as confidential.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR]
AMERICA AND MUNICH
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
SIR,—In the present atmosphere of goodwill which is both seasonable and politic between America and England, it is difficult perhaps to justify a certain pessimism with regard to our mutual understanding and co-operation. The fact that Mr. Eden met with a " splendid reception " on his recent unofficial but officially " approved " visit to the United States, should not blind us to the fact that our stock on the other side of the Atlantic has definitely slumped since Munich. That event, as the climax of a train of like events, has thrown American public opinion into a confusion in which our actions and motives appear in a most unfavourable light. It has also led to a more carecul analysis of the foreign policy of America itself.
America has been so often described as " at the crossroads " that it is a relief to be able teobserve that today in her foreign policy she stands not so much' at any crossroads as at one of her own native roundabout constructions which conceals or renders unimportant the actual crossing or divergence of paths. It is, however, still possible to detect several alarmingly contradictory factors in the average American's understanding of foreign affairs.
The primary distinction to be made is between the foreign policy the American people think best for such as ourselves to implicate, and the foreign policy for which they themselves are prepared to shoulder the responsibility. In the first instance, the American is full of a vicarious zeal for the demo- cratic cause and is eager, on the advice of his newspaper's European correspondents, to condemn the Munich settlement as a retreat before Fascism, unwarranted not because war would have been a conceivable alternative, but because Hitler did not mean war, and his bluff could therefore have been called by a firm stand on the part of Mr. Chamberlain. But it was only to the last Englishman and no further that the , American was prepared to fight, or rather to bluff or counter- bluff. No American, however, would admit that to say that a firm stand by the potential victims of aggression could deter the aggressor is, in fact, to acknowledge the basic principle of the system of collective security for which he, as an American, has no use.
On the other hand, the prevailing sentiment concerning the foreign policy to be implicated by America itself is distinctly isolationist and almost for peace at any price. It is, for instance, a common cry that Great Britain let Mr. Stimson down in 1931, When America was alleged to be willing to enforce the Nine Power Treaty against Japan. Yet whatever the position in 1931, the United States are today ready to accept, without serious opposition or even widespread public comment, the destruction of the " open door " pclicy guaranteed by the very _treaty presumed to be worth fighting for in 1931, and to Japan, the obvious and stronger aggressor, they are only too -happy to be selling almost as many arms and munitions as to China, the obvious and weaker victim.
Again,. while discussing at Lima the necessity of a common front to the " dangers from without," the United States have under their noses German and Italian penetration into the political, economic and even military organisations of South American " democracies," and are actually content to watch Mexico dispose of oil from mines appropriated from American owners by bartering it with Germany in exchange for drilling and other machinery (to get more oil from the mines).
Even those who are determined that trade and commercial interests shall not bring the United States into any war that may break out in Europe, support the Neutrality legislation, without realising that its " cash and carry " trading stipulations would inevitably favour the belligerent stronger at sea, a cir- cumstance which in the first place is not neutrality (which must treat belligerents, however morally and physically unequal, as equal) and, in the second place, is not likely to prevent the less favoured belligerent seeking such reprisals as provided at least the occasion for the entry of the United States into the World War. Nor does American Neutrality , legislation harmonise with the avowed and widely approved purpose of Mr. Hull's economic programme.
Past history and present-day facts go to disprove the theory that America could stay out of whatever trouble may lie ahead for Europe. It is hard to find the American who denies that in the end his country would be involved. It would be harder still to find the American who does not express the hope that his country will not be involved. But wishful thinking is no good basis for anybody's foreign policy, much less for the foreign policy of the well-informed, logical and democratic people the Americans claim to be (some even admit it). It would seem difficult for an informed, logical and democratic person at one and the same moment to lend himself to the beliefs that :
(a) That the dictator's bluff could and should be called by all or any democracies other than the United -States.
(6) That America cannot join Great Britain or any other democracies in anything like a League of Nations or Collective Security System because through these entanglements the risk of war would be too great to justify to the American people, (c) That-America would ultimately be drawn into .a European War, even one of which she disapproved (as, incidentally, we all disapprove of war).
(d) That the interests of democracy and of America (always assuming these to be synonymous) demand that American opposition to Fascism and aggression be confined to " co- operation " with everyone (even Fascist aggressors) and that her shouldering of responsibilities be put off until she is actually forced into war.
It used only to be the Germans who were called " political
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