Some interesting quotations (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lloyd George on Germany and German Colonies

The following passage is from a memorandum written by Mr. Lloyd George in 1919. It is quoted by The Times (October 17th, 1938) from Vol. I of Lloyd George’s “Truth about the Peace Treaties.”

You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate Power; all the same in the end if she feels that she has been unjustly treated in the Peace of 1919 she will find means of exacting retribution from her conquerors. . . . I cannot conceive any greater cause for future war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be surrounded by a number of small States, many of them consisting of people who have never previously set up a stable Government for themselves but each of them containing large masses of Germans clamouring for reunion with their native land. . . . To my mind it is idle to endeavour to impose a permanent limitation of armaments upon Germany unless we are prepared similarly to impose a limitation upon ourselves.

Mr. Lloyd George now insists that the sooner Germany’s demand for colonies as a source of raw materials “is met by some equitable and practicable adjustment, the better it will be for the peace and well-being of the world.”

The Germans in Samoa

Up to 1914, however, the Samoans had a pretty good time on the whole. The Germans didn’t bother them much. When the Governor was hauled over the coals in Berlin for not making the islands pay, he said that the money that could be got out of them was negligible, and that they ought to be preserved as one of the few remaining natural beauty spots in the world.

That was the right attitude, German or not. We must be fair, even to former enemies. There is no doubt that the Germans took the proper view.—(From the People, September 4th, 1938.)

What Our Masters Think of Us.

According to Mr. Frank Owen (Daily Express, July 19th, 1938) the following was said “privately but quite openly . . . at a dinner, by one of His Majesty's Ministers” : —

When you shout for work for the unemployed you make two big mistakes. First, the unemployed don’t want work, they would rather be on the dole. Next, it’s cheaper for the State to keep them there.

Treatment of the Minority in Ulster.

The following is from a letter written to the Manchester Guardian by Mrs. Maud Gonne MacBride, about the treatment of the Catholic minority in Ulster: —

Under this Coercion Act any policeman can arrest anyone without warrant on suspicion and detain him in a police barracks long enough to lose him his job, if he has one. He can secure long sentences for those whom he arrests if he objects to any book or paper found in their house, whether it is banned or not. Mary MacSweeney’s “The Republic of Ireland” was not banned, but a man is doing a year’s hard labour for having it in his possession. The policeman in court said he “found passages most objectionable” and objected to the whole tone of the book.

I know a young boy who got a six-month sentence for having the manuscript of a play in which he hoped to act, and to which the policeman who arrested him took exception and described it as “disrespectful to B. Specials.” I could give countless examples of people sentenced in this way; numbers of those for whose families Mr. McGuirk, secretary of the Belfast Branch of the National Aid Society, appealed are in prison for possession of such documents.—(Manchester Guardian, September 19th, 1938.)

Lord Castlerosse on the Fraud of 1914.

In 1914 we were told that we were fighting to make the world safe for democracy and to kill Kaiserism. We won: that is to say, we beat the Germans, but all we succeeded in doing was to make the world safe for autocracy, and substitute Heil Hitler for Hoch der Kaiser, the Duce for parliamentary rule, and Stalin for a mildish Czar.

When I review the last war I now realise that nearly all my friends and some 8,000,000 people died and nobody benefited one jot, and the world is not better but worse than it was before, and yet the promises that were made to us were wonderful.—(Daily Express, September 22nd, 1938.)

Mr. George Lansbury on Tyranny Abroad and at Home.

From an anti-war speech at Derby, on October 15th, 1938: —

It is a strange commentary on the almost universal denunciation of the regimentation of people in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, that we should in this country, where the denunciation is loudest, be steadily marching towards the same conditions. If this proposal goes through and we are all regimented and ticketed and docketed, I don’t see that that is any different from living in a totalitarian State. You will have the facade of democracy, but really you will be all under arms. — (Manchester Guardian, October 17th, 1938.)