THE A WEEKLY NEW SPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840

VOL. 174 No. 5193

R EG ISTERED AS A N EW S PA P E R

LONDON, NOVEMBER 18th, 1939

SIXPENCE

IN THIS ISSUE

THE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN SOCIETY

An Editorial on Mr. T. S. Eliot’s New Work

IN ITALY TODAY

A Rome Correspondent’s Account o f the Italian Attitude to the War

POLAND U N D ER GERMANY

By Our Central European Correspondent LLOYD G E O R G E -H I S RECENT RECORD

By Christopher Hollis Full List o f Contents on page 576.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK Inside Germany

In the curious mixture of moderation and violence which made H i t le r ’s Munich speech, he rested his confidence in the struggle against Britain on things like his personal experience o f the last War, where he had learned to respect the British soldier, but not to be over-awed. But the real question is Germ any’s ability to resist siege conditions. We calculate th a t though Germany can resist for a long time, there cannot be indefinite resistance, and we are confident th a t the more ambitious the military activity undertaken to break the siege, the worse the position will be made inside the Reich. Those Nazis who are confident base their confidence on the new social structure. I t is exceedingly probable, and one o f the few forecasts that may be ventured without much presumption, that Germany will astonish everybody by the lengths to which self-sufficiency and improvisation can be carried. The years o f war will quicken the tempo which is already a quick one, and hasten the process of rapidly undoing the slow work of the nineteenth century. Then Germany equipped itself to be a great manufacturing and exporting nation, and made every sort of contact and bond overseas, o f which the Mercantile Marine and the Navy built to protect it were the chief symbols. Today the sale o f German merchant ships in neutral ports, the willingness o f the Third Reich, so ambitious in other fields o f armaments and prestige, to forego a large naval programme, are the symbols of the reversed process, and the movement towards a life organized and conducted with a minimum of dependence on foreigners. I f warfare had not become a matter of minerals to the extent it has, the independence might be achieved, on the condition th a t the Reich stood rigidly on the defensive. The defensive would release men for other tasks, even while they were kept with the Colours. But if there are great elements o f strength in the Nazi system by contrast with the economically looser Hohenzollern structure, politically the Nazis face already opposition far more formidable than the Hohenzollerns and the lesser rulers o f the old Monarchist Germany had to face till the very end o f the War. Too many people in Germany, and particularly those who remember the old Monarchies with affection, have been biding their time in the last six years and are now beginning to think th a t perhaps their time is a t hand.

The Germans are unimaginative and without much gift for visualizing future contingencies, but the Munich explosion brings home to the most stolid on what a precarious basis the whole violent policy which they are being compelled to follow really rests. Such incidents must inevitably encourage the oppressed to be bolder in showing their detachment from the regime, and the secret opposition to undertake more open propaganda. The Home Front and Air Warfare

One o f the many considerations which tell against violent air warfare and the bombing o f towns, as something for the Nazis to initiate, is that air-raids would be remarkable opportunities for the opponents o f the regime who would enjoy a combination of darkness, noise and explosion, which they would be little likely to neglect. As it is, black-out conditions greatly help subterranean propaganda. Factory for factory, it would be much more difficult for Germany, which is undergoing siege, to make adequate repairs after air damage than it would be for the Allies, so many o f whose factories are now across the Atlantic. The Germans, in short, have a great deal to gain as long as the Allies are willing not to attack towns unless the Germans begin. German industry lies next door to the frontier and is much more vulnerable than British industry would be, even if the Germans established their bases a t Flushing or Bruges. The Germans know, too, that they are going to be