What Price Peace?

(See Cover)

Mrs. Chamberlain remained snug and cozy at No. 10 Downing Street last week and Mr. Chamberlain went fishing. It had been a titan's task to win brief leisure for this favorite recreation of Britain's best-known brother of the angle and Prime Minister. His method is to get things done by businesslike steps. First, he averted European war by Czechoslovak dismemberment. Second, he won a vote of confidence on this act last week, 366 to 144, in the House of Commons. Third, he averted strife in his Conservative Party by postponing indefinitely the annual Party Conference which was to have been held last week. And fourth, the Prime Minister went fishing in the River Tweed.

As the Prime Minister thus occupied himself, the Empire had opportunity to pass judgment on how the House of Chamberlain has served it politically for more than 60 years. Each of three outstanding Chamberlain Statesmen has been not the first aristocrat, not the first proletarian, but perhaps the first progressive Middle-Class leader of his time. Father Joseph ("Old Joe") Chamberlain who died of a stroke at 77 in 1914; Elder Son Sir Austen Chamberlain, K. G., who died of a stroke at 73 last year; and Half-Brother Neville Chamberlain, who is 69--each of these three, after years of experience in civic, national and finally international affairs, reached the conclusion that firm peace between Britain and Germany is a cornerstone without which peace in Europe is something that cannot be built, a phantom dream tower of ideals which end in blood.

Flying Buttress of Peace. The House of Chamberlain snipped and whacked away in London making shoes for 130 years. Their babes were suckled and their old folk died in bed above their shoemaking or "cordwaining" * shop. The Prime Minister today is an honorary member of the Cordwainers' Company.

The industrial Revolution inspired cordwaining Chamberlains to leave London and leather, start making screws in Birmingham in the Midlands, which was for them like having taken a Covered Wagon in dangerous search of Opportunity. In 1854, at the age of 18, the present Prime Minister's father Joseph Chamberlain moved from London to Birmingham to represent the family's new business interests there and before he was half through his bold career he had made Birmingham what civic experts now recognize as "the first great municipality with an integrated and fully modern government."

In those days British peers, squires and gentlemen were the nearly undisputed masters of the State, and in 1873 Mayor Joseph Chamberlain of Birmingham was considered "vulgar." He acknowledged that he was a Radical, and was darkly suspected of being both a socialist and a republican --that is, a traitor to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. So disgusted was Punch with the Radical, whom it contemptuously called "Joey," that he was caricatured as a clown, caught in the act of applying a red-hot poker labeled "Socialism" to the behind of a Briton reading the Times with a checkbook under his arm (see cut.}

In Birmingham, "Clown Joey" cleared slum areas, opened parks, cracked down on unsanitary dwellings and extortionate rents. The water and gas supply was municipalized, and in 1900 the University of Birmingham was founded by Joseph Chamberlain who had long since become a power in the House of Commons.

Never Prime Minister, but for many years a daring Colonial Secretary and a behind-the-scenes political power, Joseph Chamberlain brought to every conflict courage, the progressive humanitarianism and the trading (compromise) spirit of the Middle Class, anathema to aristocrats and proletarians. He had no occasion to study the Sudeten, Czech or Slovak problems, but in 1885 he did propose to transform the British Isles into a federation with five separate parliaments. He was two generations ahead of his time in wanting to give Ireland substantially the status that it has today.

For three years (1898-1901) "Old Joe," through secret emissaries traveling between London and Berlin, tried to construct an alliance of the British and German Empires. But Kaiser Wilhelm II would not concede Britain naval supremacy, and Foreign Minister Prince von Buelow insisted that Germany could yield nothing which would undercut her "destiny to rule the world."

Miss Mary Endicott, a daughter of U. S. Secretary of War in the first administration of President Cleveland, by becoming the third wife of Old Joe (twice a widower) helped him reach this final conclusion of his maturity: although Anglo-German accord is indispensable to European peace, the edifice requires to be supported by a flying buttress 3,000 miles long in the form of an alliance or entente of the U. S. with Britain and Germany.

Although last week Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeared to be only fishing in the River Tweed, the sudden announcement from Balmoral that King George and Queen Elizabeth will next year become the first reigning Britons ever to set foot in North America was recognized as an opening move by Son Neville to attempt the construction of Father Joseph's proposed transatlantic flying buttress of peace.

"Spirit of Locarno." After the Allies had beaten Germany and imposed the Treaty of Versailles, the House of Chamberlain took up its chosen international mission under Elder Son Austen Chamberlain who became Foreign Secretary in 1924. Few days later the British Sirdar in Egypt, Sir Lee Stack, was assassinated and Mr. Chamberlain traded a settlement of that outrage for which Britain was paid $2,500,000 by Egypt. The influence of Son Austen as Lord Privy Seal and Leader in the House of Commons was decisive in achieving exactly what Father Joseph had advocated and died devoutly wishing: the Irish Free State, and a peace which has now lasted between Britain and Ireland for more than a decade.

Last week Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, before he went fishing, wrote out in his own hand a letter agreeing that His Majesty's Government will negotiate with Prime Minister Eamon de Valera, owing to Mr. de Valera's sudden demand --following the Munich dismemberment of Czechoslovakia--that a plebiscite be held to determine whether some of Ulster (the six counties of Northern Ireland which are part of the United Kingdom) shall be brought under the de Valera Government of Eire.

From 1924 onward Austen Chamberlain proceeded as British Foreign Secretary to assuage bitterness which the Victors and the Vanquished of the World War felt for each other. He found in the late Aristide Briand of France, the late Gustav Stresemann of Germany and in Benito Mussolini, three statesmen willing to join Great Britain in making the peace of Locarno (TIME, Nov. 2, 1925), consummated when the German Republic entered the League of Nations (TIME, Sept. 20, 1926).

The Nobel Peace Prize and Garter Knighthood were the rewards of Sir Austen Chamberlain, as he now became, but he was an unusual Chamberlain, even an unusual Englishman, in being sincerely pro-French. For Sir Austen the collapse of the German Republic, the rise of the "unspeakable" Nazi Dictatorship, Hitler's withdrawal of Nazidom from the League, and the relative weakening of Britain and France as Germany became relatively stronger were stark Disaster. Sir Austen was too much the man of peace ever to advocate a "preventive war" by Britain and France against Germany. As the Elder Statesman of the House of Commons he did say not long before his death last year: "The difficulty is not that enough treaties have not been signed, but that enough treaties are not kept." Trader v. Dictators. Neville Chamberlain was brought up by Father Joseph to consider that Half-Brother Austen would one day be Prime Minister and build the bastion of peace with flying buttresses.

Meanwhile, the private business of the House of Chamberlain and the welfare of the City of Birmingham were to be attended to efficiently by Neville. Old Joe sent young Austen on one of the grandest "Grand Tours" ever made. Old Joe sent young Neville to manage an estate in the Bahama Islands.

Neville oversaw Negro workers. Austen sipped champagne with the Kaiser, was long the house guest of Prince Bismarck, learned almost everything there was to know about diplomacy--considered in Europe as something impossible to practice without years of special training, as for the law. Nobody suspected in those days that one Adolf Hitler would smash the Law in Germany and substitute a Government of one man; or that in a few years four men would be as important as they were last fortnight at Munich. But by the time Germany had found her man, the House of Chamberlain was ready with a man who is no product of Europe's old-school diplomacy.

Today, many old-school Britons are aghast at the "shirtsleeve diplomacy" and "American methods" of Neville Chamberlain.

The civic and business and moral problems of Birmingham were grappled with by Neville Chamberlain for many long years.

He too gave the city a progressive administration. During his mayoralty a Birmingham municipal bank, first institution of its kind in England, was established. He was chairman of the extremely active Birmingham Town-Planning Committee. He reached the House of Commons in 1918 fighting against the liquor traffic and for the Gothenburg (control) System.

The prestige of the House of Chamberlain, added to Son Neville's mainly municipal achievements, entitled him to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1923. This exalted and showy office, which he was later to hold from 1931 until he became Prime Minister, displeased him at first because he was still engrossed in civics. He soon chose the unshowy office of Minister of Health in 1924, because he could push pensions for widows and orphans, the Milk and Dairies Order, pure food laws, and most of all, British Housing--which became the "British Housing Boom." Many Socialists and Laborites worked with and also criticized his Ministry of Health for his "Tory Socialism." The British aristocracy sniff at his Middle-Class, unheroic conviction that more is always lost by fighting than by trading.

It is largely the aristocracy--not the proletariat--who now pose the question: will Adolf Hitler trade, will he give a quid pro quo in the long run? Or must both theFuehrer and Il Duce ultimately be fought--at any cost--because they are not traders?

Infidels & Police. In the Middle Ages the leaders of Christendom, although frankly convinced that infidel leaders incarnated the very devil, found it best to make deals and trades with them for peace. The Christians, to their surprise, found the infidels in the main to be honest traders, although still devils and fair game for the next crusade. Was the Munich Agreement dismembering Czechoslovakia a trade between the two devils and their opposite numbers? Was it even a trade?

So vast were the issues broached at Munich that no man can say with firm assurance whether history will record it as a first great stride on the road to peace, or as a first great slip toward world war. Any man could see last week, however, that in itself the Munich Agreement was not a trade. To give a man a quarter to watch your car because you believe he will slash the tires unless you do is not a trade. At Munich it was impossible to call the police, as Neville Chamberlain would have done in the Municipality of Birmingham, if Adolf Hitler had offered to slash tires. There are no international police.

Map of the World. As he fished last week, the Prime Minister could forget, but only briefly, the map of the world which every British Empire statesman must always bear in mind, and which Neville Chamberlain could not ignore at Munich.

Britain is a sea power. The Kaiser would not sign a treaty giving Britain undisputed naval supremacy over Germany, but the Fuehrer signed (and probably is not stupid enough to break) the treaty under which his navy is restricted to 35% of Mother England's (TIME, June 24, 1935). That was a trade. The gain to Britain, which the late Joseph Chamberlain would have considered stupendous, even with aircraft altering the picture, was something Neville Chamberlain bore well in mind at Munich. The vital lifelines of the British Empire, spanning the globe (see map), are still defended, and will be for years, primarily by sea power. Japan, had Britain & France gone to war with Germany fortnight ago, would have been able to seize Hong Kong at the end of the British lifeline, which vibrated slightly last week with a fizzled putsch in Siam. Perhaps Singapore also would have fallen if the war had lasted even a few months. With these in Japanese hands the whole British stake in the Far East might have been lost, some -L-500,000,000 or more. In case of war German guns already installed within range of Gibraltar might have cut the British lifeline there, and Italy might have used her navy & air force to chop up the same lifeline at Suez and in the Mediterranean, although Mussolini & Franco might have done what Italy did in 1915, change sides for a fancy price to join Britain & France.

As the British Prime Minister added up what Britain and France might have to pay throughout the world if they fought-- even if they won--he also could plainly see on the map Adolf Hitler's chosen path via Czechoslovakia at least as far as Turkey (see p. 23), with echoes from the past of Kaiser Wilhelm's dream of an axis from "Berlin to Bagdad." In its relative size on the map of trouble this Nazi threat has its place. So have portions of Africa about which there may soon be attempted trading. *Obviously if Nazis will not trade, if experience shows a valid quid pro quo is impossible in the long run, then the Democracies, now rearming and able to rearm relatively faster than Germany and Italy, will have to fight the Second World War later.

"It is good to have a giant's strength," Neville Chamberlain keynoted several weeks before the Czechoslovak Crisis arose: "It is tyrannous to use it."

Mrs.Chamberlain, who went out during the Crisis and joined at Westminster Abbey in public peace prayers, this week at No. 10 Downing Street continued her prayers with deep piety. If only the world can be made quite definitely more like Birmingham, the House of Chamberlain will consider this much better than if one of its sons had turned out to be a Napoleon or a Lenin--or an Eden.

*As far back as the 12th Century, England imported the best leather from Cordova, Spain, and by the time Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales it was natural for an English shoemaker of standing who used the best Cordovan leather to be called a "cordewaner." Later the word became "cordwainer."

*The British Administrator of South-West Africa, a former German colony, last week received petitions asking him to convene the Legislative Assembly to vote whether or not a plebiscite should be held on return of South-West Africa to Germany. Its population includes 30,000 persons of European ancestry including 21,000 South-West Africans of mixed Dutch and British stock, 9,000 Germans. The native population is estimated at 328,000.

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