1937-12-28 — Page 22

10

W

THE HONGKONG

TELEGRAPH. ・ TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28,

1937,

MEN AND THINGS ABROAD by W. N. EWER

"HAT price Conquest? Pretty high, as wor- ried gentlemen in Rome and in Tokyo are beginning anxiously to d-

cover.

Cost of the Abyssinian war was outrageously beyond esti-. mate; and it is (after two years) by no means over. The now capital levy shows to what financial straits it has reduced Italy. Cost-of the Chinese war is touching the £100,000,000 mark, more than the whole cost of the Russo-Japanese war; and it has only just begun,

What lies ahead these same worried gentlemen are begin- ning to regará as a difficult puzzle. The Italian people, the Japanese people, of course, must pay the bills.

Cost of living in Italy has Bone up 30 per cent. Stan- dard of living in Japan (already terribly low) down,

goes

TN both countries there la a police system that "can provent discontent from showing itself. Doubts about the war are "dangerous thinking " in Japan, "Bolshevism" in Italy.

But, police or no police, the average Italian, the average Japanese, can hardly help won- dering. You see, he had been promised not just glory but a great deal of proft.

The conquest of Abyssinia was to solve Italy's economic problems. Propaganda had pletured a land full of gold and diamonds and oft and rubber and everything the heart of an Italian could desire. Millions of money and acres of

land were there for the taking.

Manchuria was to provide for Japan as Abyssinia fur Italy. Limiticas raw materials for her industries: limitless room for her teeming population.

From both has come little but expense and disappointment—and the prospect of more expense. more effort, more sacrince. And more adventure.

C

Conquering 'Heroes'

-at a PRICE

Like her counterpart in Italy, the Japanese housewife is now paying the price of the con- questa planned by her rulers.

populations. It is no longer pos- the lesson-or, at any rate, is ulble. The conditions for doing so are gone.

When the British conquered India they did so because there was no effective resistance. There was no national consciousness.

In organisation and equipment A1 fighting power the local governments were hopelessly in- ferlor. A battle or two could con- quer a province: and that was the end. The people accepted the change of mastery without murmur, almost without ቢ thought. The Empire lay there walting to be ruled.

#

So with the Russian drive over Northern and Central Asia-and with any of the others. Empire- building was comparatively An easy thing. Empire-ruling a very easy one.

To-day it is all different. The days of the great Empires, as the

·ONQUEST of Manchuria has forced Japan Into A new war for the con- quest of Northern China. Con quest of Abyssinian little less directly has led Italy into the Spanish campaign. They cannot stop. They must succeed or break.

And they cannot succeed. Because the days of conquest ate aver. The real trouble about nineteenth century knew them, Mussollui, and about his Japanese are over. The phase of building opposite numbers is that they are has gone; the phase of breaking out of date. They are obsessed by up, or of transition to something Idens that belong to a dead past, very different, has begun. They are dreanting of buliding Nationality has become too strong and ruling and exploiting great for Imperialism to succeed. Empires, of Installing their people This country, very rich in experi- as a ruling race over huge subject ences of such things, has learned

learning.

new

At the close of the war Britain had, as part of that gigantic effort. conquered R11 enormous Empire in the Middle East. Militarlly, we were in occupation of all the land from the Libyan desert to the Indian frontler- Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia, and away north to Baku and the shores of the Casplan.

A rash Imperialism would have tried to hold and rule all that territory

and would have wrecked Britain in the attempt.

B

UT sound instinct know the task an impossible one even for the re- sources of the British Empire. National feeling among Egyptians and Arabs and Persians and the rest was too strong. British rule would never have beon passively accepted. To. hold that new Empire would have been to embark on years of continual struggle, exhausting, profitless, in the long run hopeless.

Wisely, British Imperialism" rejected the temptation, and quietly withdrew from its new

conquests. Equally wisely-if with bad hesitations and reluctances --it has come LO see that the Indian Empire, too, 18 the 10th century knew it, 18 finished;

can that India no longer be held as a conquest, that Indian Independence (pos- sibly in partnership, but still independence) is inevitable: that the problem is how to end the regime of conquest peacefully. painlessly, and with the minimum of upheaval.

As with the British, so with all the other Empires French, Dutch, Russian and the rest. They all have to learn, they are all beginning to learn, that the days of domination are over, and that their subject peoples have to be prepared for and helped to Independence.

To try to keep them in sub- mission would be, in the long run. # hopeless, unprofitable and suicidal effort.

In Africa, true, the process has gone less far. But it begins there. The tide of Imperial conquest has turned.

The ebb is beginning→ everywhere.

And it is now that, with a blind romanticism, Japan and Italy chose to try to begin careers of Imperial conquest and domina- tion.

They long to imitate the example of others. But they do not under- stand that the models they are trying to imitate are already being

scrapped as not only costly but unwork- abia.

They are chasing mirages as illusory as Dante's dream of re-establishing ono universal monarchy over all Christendom or Napoleon's vision of a French Empire from the Tagus to the Volga,

Mussolini may, by straining Italy's IC- sources to the utmost, subduo and hold Abys- sinia. Even that is not certain. But his dreams BO further. He thinks of a new Roman Empire of the East, of Italian domin- ation of Spain. of heaven knows what.

Even if no

Great Power stood in his way. it is a madman's vision that, pursued, could only lead Italy not to greatness but to collapse.

Japan may win battles in China, Teraucht may sweep south of the Yellow River. The Chinese lines to Shanghal may be broken, the Emperor's armies may march to Nanking. But then?

China of the twentieth century Is not India of the nineteenth. To subdue, to hold, to govern and to exploit that huge population

roused now to a white heat of national consciousness and hatred for the invader is beyond possl- bility.

.

A

8 to Germans who may still dream of bringing

under the heel of the Relch Czechs and Poles, Slovaks and Rumanians and Ukrainians from Bliesla to the Black-Sca- this is beyond Bedlam.

Of course, all this does not lessen the danger that such attempts may be made-arc, Indeed, being made. It does not lessen the re- sponsibility of those who have lut the organisation of security be- come so feeble that the attempts ure possible,

It does not lessen the tragedy of it all, but heightens it, by adding irony to tragedy.

The world is faced by the last madness of lust for conquest in a day when conquest has become an absurdity and the conqueror's Em- pire an impossibility.

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OUR BRITISH

18

14

0

3.

ACROSS 1 In this science ties the cripple's

hope (10).

This bit of meat is mostly n plant (4).

10 ile evidently takes exception to

the rule (5).

11 This food is caten, of course,

and not drunk (0)

12 When the end is turned in transparent setting there is re- joicing (8),

13 A great singer (8),

15 An ungallant blade (7),

17 This has no small significance

(7).

19 Kind of uniform' for the order

of the bath? (7),

21 When employers this curtailed

they make it all (7).

22 Epithet for a rough

(D).

diamondl

24 The result of the world getting

A bit abve itself? (8).

27 Governed too much, or declared

to be invalid? (9).

28 A relativo (3),

20 Did Noah land on this island?

(4).

30 To a very great extent comes

from your lemons (10).

DOWN

He is no lady's man but a bit

of a progressive (4),

2 Statistics are sometimes beat

arranged thus (0),

3 Causes of friction may vanish

on being this (5). ^

4.She may be good in parts (7);

Telephone 28021.

CROSSWORDS

5 Lodge (7).

7 A healthy beating revenis ita

Atness (5),

8 This should show the opinion

of the people (10),

This may blunt the sorrow (8).

14 Conscientious (10). 10 Opening with

(8).

18 Want (9).

edge

of

simian opening

20 An Alpine tunnel (7).

21 The end is inferior in position

and spoils the whole (7).

23 Sounds approval, undoubtedly

(0),

23 A dance (4).

20 Gainsay (4).

Yesterday's Bałution

KITTIWAKE MP M CINIAIOA TAHITI TCHEREREA LEPED NBRA PARKED OTUATRICE DIML

HUAN YEH BRONZE BRB A I'MMONIUM HAPLESS EPISTLE

OHMMERPUTTEN

WRAITHN BRAM PBUHIGENT LEUBN LYBBOMBAMERS PENER A FE VA IN OPORTO CAREENTE LOREAL EMTN PHILATELY