Where the News Ends

CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY

Where the News Ends by WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The Fateful Words of Marshal Smuts NO public utterance of recent times deserves more careful attention ami study than the pronouncement of Field...

...Either Great Britain and the Soviet Union would clash over some disputed territory or the peoples of Europe, hard as it may be to believe under present circumstances would make common front against this ahen domination, however benevolently it might be designed and exercised...
...If the war is followed by s long period of apace, they will inevitably demand something cfifrer-ent...
...Other Jewish organisations may publicise their activities but they certainly contribute towards the rescue of Jews from physical extermination...
...th> ituation by absorbing into the British Commonwealth the "smaller democracies in Western Europe...
...Tou will have Russia, in a position which no country has ever occupied in the history of Europe...
...And we certainly will not remain silent until tha powers that he do all that it possible and more than is possible to resent these ate sre today crying out to «• *Jf Hitter's dungeons and dseth-ehambers.—M array Bitrtss Why They f*ar rat SaeaW* raft from WALTIK J. MILLAU To the Editor: In your tend editorial as Basil th yoa said: "It has testa* clear that a lot af poHuetess aa afraid of tbe soldier vote...
...But at a time when the colonial system in Asia, even In Africa, is showing visible cracks under the newly aroused racial and national consciousness of Asiatic and African peoples, is it either desirable or probable that this old continent, with its many treasures of civilization, could be administered ss a colonial area under an uneasy condominium of the Soviet Union and Great Britain...
...The American labor movement cannot be liquidated...
...Hush Jews" and take time out to attack tbe Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europd...
...Production, trade, transport will be managed in accord with global agreements...
...These The New Leader has supported fully snd will continue to support Certainly our .paper has never followed a hash-hush policy on this question...
...may parallel old policies...
...France has gems and will be gone, ia ear day and perhaps far assay a day...
...Though there is no actual lack of food, the opposition of the farmers has created a drastic shortage in the Japanese cities, where the population has recently been going hungry...
...This line of thinking logically leads Smuts to the anxious reflection that the future of the world witt ha in the hands of, a trinity of powers, the United States, the Soviet Union and "this island, tha heart of the Empire and the Commonwealth, weak in her European resources in comparison with the vast resources of the other two...
...The soldiers in the Red Army and the people at borne have made incredible sacrifices...
...Murray Everett could find better things to do than to join the chorus of "Husa...
...Millions are serving in the national forces...
...They have safceeded in getting the cooperation of educational leaders—of labor leaders snd reactionaries, hardly one of whom is a Zionist—rnuch less a revisionist...
...Cairo, and Teheran— is tha danger of a new and bigger sort of imperialism...
...Oat of the horrors of a common fare the satsa* of that old continent may rise wftth a asanas for security which can"find its guarantees whin a greater atgrta...
...Winston Churchill sate that h* he* est to...
...Smuts spoke with a blunt clarity that is Ssanity conspicuously larking ia official statements...
...Our main criticism of the "Emergency Committee" is that it Is not always responsible...
...lutionary changes which followed the bun wsn But great populations cannot ha forever has down...
...The Renew ten* t ttajj recent and intimate history: jjy New Jersey, for «x»a.»is, # the voters appro red th* oha"J revising the state's rOhUirpnf t constitution by a margin of I * Z, the men :r...
...I think such an experiment, soon or late, would end in a disastrous fiasco...
...Except for the winning of the war...
...The veteran statesman is astute enough to see thin point and to emphasize it, not altogether, one suspects, with glowing enthusiasm...
...Should we not work intimately together with these small democracies in Western Erope which, by them-11 selves, may be lost as they are loot today and as they may be lost again...
...Where the News Ends by WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The Fateful Words of Marshal Smuts NO public utterance of recent times deserves more careful attention ami study than the pronouncement of Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts predicting a power vacuum of indefinite duration in Europe and snge—sting that Great Britain fortify itself agairs...
...Personally, I sm not s "yes man" and within the committee I have voiced my criticisms of certain things—but ss a whole , srUsnligh I may have been a critic of Hoover end Hearst and though I may have bean a co-worker with AUaage^ Baaars and Thackery...
...How much of the money raised by the "Emergency Committee" has actually been spent for rescue purposes...
...Three ef the five Pa reps sn great powers will have esased to exist, accord ins to his conception...
...Tbe New Leader believes that not enough has been done to rescue the Jewish people from total extermination...
...A Reply There are many responsible Jewish organizations in this country which have been doing the work of bringing to the attention of the American people the sufferings of the millions of Jaws hi Nazi-invaded reentries since the first day that Hitler came to power—not as dramatically perhaps as the "Emergency Committee" but in many respects more effectively...
...The expanding power of democratic forces will mean a Use aad-let-hve porky toward tha rest of the world...
...This will not mean a new heaven apd s new earth...
...Bat these laws ware widely disobeyed, and the fsraters proved reluctant to sell at the prescribed prices...
...come the King's Pint Minister in osdsr a pah-side st the dissolution of the Eanars, American capitalists are rapidly pUrds% far gnaw* wealth to be wrung from w-odd tnvnv TV Stalin government is staking oat as dabs* tot control of a great part of tbe earth...
...And yet t . . and yet . . . millions of men have heard the beautiful words of the charter...
...But not its actions What is the sense in raising huge sums of money through advertisements in newspapers if this money is only spent on more advertising...
...by the exiled Social Democrats, Gerhart Segay and Siegfried h. March, which has jut been issued by the Rand School Press...
...as a goal the resurrection af Europe, aot its burial...
...Much more can he done and much more moat be done...
...It is the representatives of the democratic socialist intelligentsia, who, in their great majority, maintain their critical attitude toward Stalin's totalitarian method and uphold the rights of the smaller peoples on Russia's frontiers to self-determination...
...Their democratic (paper) constitution cannot forever be held in abeyance...
...Britain, Russia and the United States will have tbe continents' and islands and oceans tied up tighter than thwjr ever were before...
...An unequal partnership, I am afraid...
...EDITORIAL COMMENT Merry Christmas...
...Japan and her empire now have a population of 800 million, only a fourth of which live in Japan...
...Japanese Home Front in Crisis Japan's war economy, which has been organised on Nasi lines since 1940, has proved a failure, with the result that a radical reorientation has been necessary, the Manchester Gsxanssna reports...
...veteri a» a whole were three t* st* against...
...This is true of most of the members of the committee*—but not of the directing organization...
...This is a natural line of cleavage...
...I sm not a revisioaist My interest in Zionism- is new...
...In the end power resides rn the masses of men rather than in marshals and-ministers...
...something better...
...Perhaps the motive of the "Emergency Committee" which is in more than one sense a front for various Revisionists, if not for the Revisionist organisation of the United States, is a noble one...
...Our theory is that it is a good thing to see clearly what is before our eyes...
...I happen to be -one of the "grotesque combination" which they have assembled on this committee...
...When tbe political parties, which were completely subservient to the great private industrial monopolies, were dissolved in 1940, the army seized power over the war industries and took over a large number of war plants, paying very little compensation for them...
...France has gone, aad if ever she returns it will be a hard aad a long apwsrd pall far her to emerge again...
...Unless all observable signs fail, we shall enter upon a new balance-of-power period...
...The British Commonwealth, as distinguished from India and other parts of the Empire, is a natural association of free peoples, held together by common bonds of language and history...
...Thin will not put sn end to oppression and exploitation...
...If we have in the near future a reactionary administration in Washington, the hold of super-capitalism will be riveted tighter than ever before...
...Surely, The New Leader has no horror of being "repudiated by every established organization " I believe it would be finer and more in keeping with the tradition of The New Leader ta extend a helping band to this committee rsther than a condemning criticism...
...I'HE usual jdb of The New Leader Is to * punch boles in bunk...
...A decree dated September 20 restored to private industrialists and landowners a great deal if not all of the freedom they possessed before the Japanese army took over the direction of economic activities, the English newspaper revests...
...Germany also, according to Smuts, will "disappear"—a vague and somewhat ominous term...
...It remains to be seen whether the concessions recently made to industry and agriculture, re- ' storing the former freedom of action of industrialists and farmers, will result in increased production or not, the Manchester Guardian states...
...Amy Seizes Power Prior to this change, Japan's industrial life was' completely dominated by s few big industrial concerns, the owners of which had extended their influence over all the occupied territories as well...
...But at the end of this war thata probably will be demands upon the government...
...The * Soviet Union is automatically, if indirectly, the beneficiary of the sentence of doom which Smuts pronounces on Great Britain's ally, France, and on the enemy powers, Germany and Italy...
...The occupation of China's coastal area brought important industrial plants and equipment under Japan's domination...
...Boss is stetson County, which Bos* Bat* holds in the hoHc* of his teai the soldier vrte ¦at Stela favor, while the Hiateor...
...But the more reactionary a Russian is by social background and temperament the more likely he is to give unconditional endorsement to Stalin's policies and especially to his annexationist territorial aims...
...Some lessons must have been tarsal The shifting ef masses of people has haste effect...
...But he is one of the senior statesmen of the British Empire and is very far from being a man who speaks lightly and irresponsibly...
...Right near our lords of finance and industry sit close to the eoatets of power where plans for tbe future are being draam up...
...Hopes have been raised...
...Smuts was not speaking in an official capacity...
...Is The National Municipal ***** tor December there it a aot* Bat goes to show that there it sate justification for this taft atj teriag...
...After the smash that will follow this War Germany will be written off the slate in Europe for long, long .years, and after that a new world may have arisen...
...Chins is Use most populous country in the world, and its great masses have been profoundly wakened by six years of war...
...war economy which threatens her empire with collapse snd her war economy with paralysis...
...Rosenberg htUssas that the "Emergency Committee" is "pure in heart" Perhaps it ia But the situation is certainly snore complex than to say that tha— who have good intentions or are "militant" should be given a blank check of approval...
...They (the small democracies) have learned the lesson that, standing by themselves on the continent, dominated by one or other great power—as will be the future position—they are lost...
...Its character would be radically changed by the inclusion of European continental powers...
...Aa the owners snd managers of tbe great industrial trusts could put up no active resistance, they continued to act aa managers snd economic advisers, but their half-hearted support of the wag effort resulted in lessened efficiency...
...As |or Italy, it "has completely disappeared and may never be a great power again...
...Her principal sea line is that which stretches from Jspsn to Singapore and Batavia through the Chins Seat...
...Bat a the world as it exists m tint interns part si «M twentieth cenury the old imperialism, tin an sort of capitalism and the old-fsahknas* Mai of control ef nation ay nation witt—st an hag run—simply not work...
...A government that talks socialism and practices tyranny cannot forever endure— although it has already broken all records in the history of dictatorships...
...Within s year or two the way te a better life will be cleared of that particular obstacle...
...Still worse was the situation on the domestic food front Laws required that every available inch of sail be used for growing food, which bad te be delivered to the government at fixed prices...
...But it will mean— or may mean—a new sort of British Commonwealth of Nations...
...The questions, then, is not in motive but in method...
...AH the empires that have been will look parochial in comparison with the wide-ranging controls that will keep life in motion and hold it in check...
...Surely they must feel that their place is with this member of the trinity, their way of life Is with Grant Britain, their outlook and their future are with Great Britain and the worldwide British system...
...In all these areas she possesses large reservoirs of manpower and of skilled and semi-skilled labor...
...The pre-war landlord or Imperial Army officer is often the most vociferous Stalinite patriot, accepting anything the Soviet dictator demands with the sams uncritical enthusiasm with which he once sang "God Save the Tsar...
...Right now there is no possibility of any internal movement to modify its nationalistic and imperialistic policy...
...It is true ' that perhaps a majority of the hard workers on this committee who were previously associates with the Jewish Army Committee are revisionists...
...The continental ovaaaMsf of ante** has nuptteations which cannot be evade...
...Europe has, of course, been gravely weakened and desolated by this second great war within a generation...
...Evan Europe is net hopeless...
...Why assume that anyone who does not agree with the Revisionists believes in s hush-hush policy...
...But we have had the New Dent No reactionaries can ever undo what has been done...
...so bluntly about probabilities which ate usually veiled in discreet double-talk Will ha to focus public attention in the democracies on the...
...The old Bhrmarckian Germany may perhaps never rise again...
...For Stalin has achieved absolutism to a degree that makes Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Nicholas I seem fumbling amateurs in this field...
...She acquired great ship-yards in China and the Netherlands Indies, and her own shipbuilding industry is well developed...
...He then proposes that the unfavorable distribution and balance of power, from the British standpoint, should be redressed, at least in part, by drawing the smaller democracies of Western Europe closely into the British orbit, ' "Should there not be closer union between . Bet" he asks...
...Tan* will be little opportunity for the sort of an...
...Indeed it may torn out that the principal service which Marshal Smuts has rendered by speaking...
...We have, therefore, kept strumming on the fact that the Atlantic Charter is thus far only s euphonious collection of words outlining an alluring picture...
...Maw Political Uses A mono RasaJaas AN interesting line of cleavage, paradoxical at first sight and yet deeply logical, ia appearing among the Russians in this country...
...sta^aphpgnJaT1 are forgotten in Perhaps there is too much disagreement on policy amongst the Jewish people—perhsps too many Jews have a horror of the type of militancy for which certain elements of this committee stand...
...You can't make the world better by kidding yourself into tbe notion that it is good...
...Japan is therefore entirely dependent on her control of the seas...
...Transport difficulties further aggravated the situation...
...with shear interest* tSui round by the borders of their Uny tuts of ]9 They, too, live under a dictatorship anj 3 been promised a democratic conitjuuoa, JZZ or late they will be able to pat power bsgB the srssand that promise* be fuifi.ed India has bean promisee treason afnwan war...
...In two of them labor parties are al-ready ta potest...
...They have held on through dark and bitter years buoyed up by the promise of socialism...
...But our drive for industrial and commercial dominance is one of the stioiigeat imperialist impulses in the world...
...In five years or ten there may be labor governments throughout the dominions...
...Russia is tbe new colossus on the European continent...
...We shall find ways of breaking through whatever financial and industrial arrangements hold us down aad hold us back...
...They have been given national views and national hopes...
...This would seem to be a hint at partition snd dismemberment...
...The raw materials which are indispensable to her war industries must be brought front overseas, over distances of from 600 to 3,000 miles...
...Great populations have been shifted from region to region...
...The tragedy of the Jews groaning in Hitler's ghettos and liquidation camps is too great and profound to make it a matter of high pressure publicity...
...4 Jews sre being slsughtered by-plan and I have small respect for persons whether they be individuals or committees who take time out to point an accusing finger and to voice irrelevant criticism against individuals in a group attempting te do as necessary a job as this committee is working on...
...In all the dominions of Great Britain there are powerful latter ' movements bidding for power...
...Russia, the third member of tbe Big Three, is completely regimented...
...With the others down and out and herself tbe mistress of the continent, her power will not only be great on that account, but it will be still greater because the Japanese Empire will also have gone the way of all flesh...
...What is the alternative to the Santa' scheme of super-power polities...
...IP such a state of affairs there would be much to be said for the Smuts plan of rescuing as much of the continent aa possible from totalitarian Red hegemony...
...They prefer habeas corpus to "habeas cadaver," the primary principle of OGPU jurisprudence...
...I am quite certain that all who praise The New Leader Ac not agree with it in all its policies, and as to intrigues—"He who is among you without sin let him cast the first stone...
...How this idea, far treat easy realization, aright conceivably be implemented will be a subject to which I shell return ia next week's column...
...At the very least his speech must be considered a serious trial balloon...
...On te-mediate outlook for mankind is not bright lot beyond the darkness there h> light fiprtsg— after all—is coming...
...Because, for political, sssassslc and geographical rsssans, Germany lies st the heart ef spy workable scheme af European renovation...
...BUT the Smuts proposals contain in thtthatlvtt ** such grave and obvious defects that the need for an alternative feasible better scheme of world organisation is obvious and Imperative...
...uniform voting M mail approved the preeedtoa FOUR TO ONE...
...So what...
...POLITICS, like nature, abhors a vacuum...
...of unity...
...What we see immediately before us—despite the bright promises of conferences held st Moscow...
...German*: Te Be or Not To Be...
...They have succeeded in stirring up, an interest in a necessary job—an immediate job...
...The French , Canadians of Quebec resent the slighting dismissal of France...
...In this eseaaatfsa I shall disease the very interesting little book...
...need for s better alternative...
...The Belgians, the Dutch, the peoples <sf Scandinavia, tha Finns, for that matter, are far closer to British than to Soviet practices in all matters affecting political and civil liberty...
...The last word about the future of Europe has not been said and could not be said in capitals outside of Europe, in Moscow, Cairo and Teheran...
...But this is—or may be—only the short-term prospect In the middle distance there are other possibilities, snd this Christmas season seems the right time to point them out...
...Canadian public opinion is already worried at the prospect of the enlargement of the predominantly English-speaking Commonwealth by the addition of non-British countries under circumstances that suggest a competition in spheres of influence with the Soviet Union...
...One could briefly summarize it by suggesting...
...Our people are not sympathetic with imperialism...
...The laws and orders of the military government ware not carried out and despite working hours for hath men and women which were the longest possible, production for war purposes could not be sufficiently increased...
...If air lines and investments . are gvabai, so are dreams...
...The new governments, facing tbe same economic problems as the old...
...Japan has been sale to harness the subject peoples snd induce them to increase production everywhere...
...Should we aot cease, as Great Britsin, to be an island...
...On the issue of wishing to see Hitler beaten and Russia freed from foreign invaders alt Russians, a negligible handful of fascist sympathizers excepted, are united...
...Now if one thinks in terms of unlimited power nalttlia there is a good deal of iron logic in the suggestions of Marshal Smuts...
...The war will be long snd tough, but we are winning it Fascism hi control of the military might of great states will be conquered...
...For rarvap periods sections of it will be occupied tni em-trolled by the victorious great powers...
...There are many evidences to show fiat tha people of England want that P'omtaaak So much has happened daring tab war test, mast he kept The attempt to fores tin pagan on the great islands of the PaehV bast aa the old imperialist mold cannot long sassmt We shall have imperialism after the war, lag' so far as the colored races are sanea ssi ft must not be the old sort of imperialism...
...Japanese impir* Stlf-Suffteiett Looking beyond the domestic front, the Japanese empire, as it has been since Pearl Harbor and the acquisition of new territories which followed, is rich in rsw materials, in industrial equipment and in labor supply...
...And why this arrogance...
...f -• LETTERS TO THE EDITORS Reader Protests Criticism of "Emergency Committee" for Jews From Ar+hir Rosenberg To the Editor:: It would seaki that your Mr...
...The Smuts pronouncement ia even more alarming from the standpoint of good Europeans...
...They can not be forced hack into' the positkafft stupid paasants...
...A Weak Spot Yet there is a weak spot in Japan...
...If the objective af ska war is to create a pulverised Europe and o pulverized East Asia, with a Stalinite Soviet Umon as tbe predominant power factor in each ismtinsnt, a very grim and bleak era will follow the cessation of actual fighting...
...An an -precedented degree of unity has been forced upon them...
...I also happen to be one greatly interested in The New Leader and was a member of its board for many years...
...The United States is not imperialistic In the commonly accepted military and political sense...

Vol. 26 • December 1943 • No. 52


 
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