CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE
To the Editor,
International Affairs.
THE COLONIAL PROBLEM
SIR,
In public speaking and writing, Mr. Harold Nicolson has arrived at
the conclusion that a solution must be conceived, not in terms of the
old nationalities or frontiers, but in terms of economic planning and
co-operation on a scale which until now has not been dreamt of in our
philosophy."
Long before anything was heard of the clamour of colonial claims,
there was a crying need for a Federal Economic Council for tropical
colonial Africa. Once the four or five tropical colonial Powers can
agree to merge the British, ex-German and other tropical African
colonies into European-cultural areas under a federated economic
direction, a laborious, scientific and colonially experienced Germany
may reasonably be invited to participate and collaborate on terms of
complete equality.
Neutralised, issuing its own currency and insulated from European
disputes, such a co-operative Africa may germinate the seed of Europeanism which lies frozen in Europe itself. The Conventional Basin
of the Congo is, in everyday practice, exceedingly shallow. It is,
however, capable of serving as a nucleus of negotiations.
And what of invested capital? When the Helvetian States of
differing French, Italian and German culture were merged under a
Federal Council, capital invested in, for instance, the Republic of
Geneva did not suffer from the abatement of suicidal economic
exclusiveness nor from the widening of opportunity and of Customs
boundaries. Nor has the right of local legislation ever been withdrawn.
It is in the interests of Europe, and especially of highly populated
Italy and Germany, that there should be European solidarity overseas
to retain for Europe the market of one hundred million African consumers in whom European-type education is just awakening desire for
European-type goods. In return, the African would benefit by the
combined effort of European medical and technical science. The
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African needs European education more than the present jealously
national or nationalist instruction in locked compartments.
It is impossible in this space to set out the facts and foundations, or
other than the merest outline, of any comprehensive scheme. But in
such a constructive project sleeps the seed of an effective European
Society of Nations. By such a plan, no colonial peoples would be
betrayed.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
46, Pall Mall, S.W.I.
January, 1938.
TRACY PHILIPPS.
To the Editor,
International Affairs.
SIR,
I find it difficult to reconcile the opening sentence of Miss Currey's
review of Marshal de Bono's book on the war in Abyssinia with the
text. She says, Marshal de Bono's book is a reply to those who
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INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
declare that the Italo-Abyssinian war was the outcome of a long laid plot
on the part of Italy." (International Affairs, Jan.-Feb~ I938, p. I30.)
On page I3 of the English translation of this book Marshal de Bono
describes a conversation between himself and Signor Mussolini, which
results in his securing the command. He goes on to say:
It was the autumn of I933. The Duce had spoken to no one
of the coming operations in East Africa; only he and I knew what
was going to happen."
I do not know what exactly Miss Currey means by It long laid."
This at any rate is proof that it was discussed by the Duce two years
before hostilities broke out: it may even have been planned some time
before this conversation.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
A. C. TEMPERLEY.
Huntlesham,
Beaconsfield.
January 5th, I938.
It
ERRATUM.
The White Sahibs in India by Reginald Reynolds is published by
Messrs. Seeker and Warburg and not by Messrs. P. S. King & Sons as
was stated on p. I35 of the Jan.-Feb. I938 of International Affairs.