RETREAT TO REALITY
Holmes, John Haynes
Retreat To Reality By JOHN HAYNES HOLMES AS THE WAR marches on to victory, it becomes perfectly clear what is going to happen after the fighting is done. There is no reason why we should fool...
...They are concerned primarily with the nationalistic and imperialistic-interests of the countries which they head, and with peace only as related and subordinated to these interests...
...For there is no such vacuum...
...This means that the territory lost during the last few years—Burma, Malay, Singapore, Hong Kong —will all be returned to the British crown...
...But the nations will not act in this spirit...
...But of one thing we may be sure, and that is that the interests and desires of the peoples populating the territories concerned will have secondary and not primary consideration...
...These are the conditions with which we have got to deal in working out this problem...
...This is an admirable statement, but a million miles away from reality, at least in the international field...
...Japan will be thrust back into her northern archipelago, as in the days before Commodore Perry...
...But they lie not within the purview of those who have fought this war to victory, and will sit down to reorganize the shattered world...
...This means a peace, so-called, in -alignment with these interests, which remain the same today as in the day when the war began...
...5Britain, Russia, and the United States will form ? an armed alliance to safeguard and perpetuate the settlements arrived at as above...
...Governments, especially when victorious on a hard-fought battlefield, are moved quite otherwise...
...The tide of arms, after the dreadful ebb of 1940-'42, is now coming in strong upon the crest of victory, and what it is going to do at the flood to all these pleasant plans for a peaceful postwar world is a-plenty...
...There is no status quo to which we could or should return...
...All this, of course, in the name of national security...
...In the beginning, this conscription will be confined to the armed forces...
...It is to look straight in the face the actual conditions that define the nature of our problem of making a peace after this war that will endure...
...This is the grim reality of the situation, as contrasted with the pleasant sentimentality which we find in so many of the peace programs now being presented for our consideration...
...most of them are statesmanlike...
...Warren, at the late Republican Convention...
...This is either because there is no certainty as to the settlement of the questions here involved, or because, if there is certainty, there is no considerable importance to be attached to what may be done...
...In other words, as the outcome of this great war for freedom, the victor peoples will all find themselves saddled with conscription...
...These peace-makers, so-called, are not concerned with peace as a project in itself...
...2The British Empire will not be liquidated...
...We are riot here to look for a road back to the status quo," said Gov...
...6At home, in each one of the Allied countries, there ? will be established permanent systems of universal military training...
...4The United States will retain her West Indian ? naval bases, will pick far-flung strategic bases in the islands of the South Pacific, will take over vast oil interests in Arabia and similar economic interests in China and north Africa, and in general consolidate her position east and west as one of the great empires of the modern world...
...But to what end...
...The status quo is right here before our eyes—a world organized in terms of a balance of power, maintained by armed might, in the service of nationalistic political and economic interests...
...How much more will be added to these rich possessions thus retrieved—how much of the French Empire, such as Syria, for example—no one can say...
...How soon it will be extended to labor and industry remains to be seen...
...Russia, more than any other nation, will have won this war, at enormous expense of life and treasure, and she will recoup all the advantages that she can...
...What will be done by the victorious Allies with the spoils of war is quite uncertain...
...It also means that India will be kept right where it is—in subjection to the crown...
...The Task Of Statesmanship To say this is not to be cynical, but rather to be honest with ourselves and others...
...This is the world that we shall face after the fighting is done...
...These programs are all of them beneficent...
...Some of the things which may be regarded as certain are the following: 1Germany will be dismembered, at least in part...
...3Soviet Russia will annex Latvia, Esthonia, and ? Lithuania, Eastern Poland, and large portions of Finland, and as much of the Balkans and of northwest China as seems desirable and safe...
...Writing these charters and programs is like building castles of sand upon the seashore...
...But it will remain what it is— a balance of power in favor of the Allies, until it is upset, as such balances are always sooner or later upset, by the rise of dissension within or opposition without...
...But the British Empire is not going to suffer any damage so you can notice it...
...This is what we started from into this war, and it is what we are going to return to out of this war...
...This is the fact from which we must make our start in formulating peace plans...
...We must take the world as it is, and find the way of subduing it to our purpose, or else confess defeat...
...It is easy enough to prepare and propound such a peace in a vacuum...
...The Status Quo Again This forecast includes nothing as to China, France, Holland, and "lesser" countries...
...This alliance, in Which smaller nations will be tolerated as underlings, and from which erstwhile enemy nations will be excluded as feared and hated aliens, will be presented in terms of "international cooperation," and its armed forces on land and sea and in the air will be defined as an "international police force...
...and Italy will be bereft of all her empire...
...They look beautiful, and even substantial, until the tide comes in— and then they are' all swept away...
...Nothing is simpler than to tell what the victor will do if they are all unselfish, right-minded, and ready to make any particular sacrifice for the general good of humanity...
...This is our real task of statesmanship—and the sooner we start on it the better...
...There is no reason why we should fool ourselves any longer about the Atlantic Charter or the various peace programs which have been presented by agencies both private and public...
...The ? Empire will, on the contrary, be restored and extended...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 29
