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Babies Are Neutral. The most important step toward international understanding and peace, Sir Norman thinks, is for Americans to get a clear idea of the structure of the British Empire. "Britain does not 'own' this Empire at all." She does "govern" bits of it, but that is something quite different. Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand are self-governing, "can and do erect heavy tariffs against Great Britain," fight by Britain's side only if they want to. "Economic imperialism," Sir Norman feels, is nothing more than "an old country using its resources to develop a new one." In India, Britain has "enormously diminished the famine risk" by building 40,000 miles of railroads and an irrigation system that "has no parallel anywhere." As to independence, half of India's population is "fiercely opposed to the Congress policy."
In Britain itself, says Sir Norman, "great incomes" have disappeared and "the present wartime economy of Britain is about as Socialist as it could be." As for the titles Americans dislike so much, Sir Norman says they are just "medals" and that Soviet Russia has medals too. "Old feudal forms tend to lubricate . . . machinery subject to friction."
What it all adds up to, concludes Sir Norman, is that the U.S. should join with Britain under a pact "for mutual aid against aggression." This is the only possible beginning to a general, international effort to insure "secure democracy." America could have air and sea bases in Malaya, Burma, Ceylon and India. Sir Norman does not think India would mind this a bit. Americans, Indians and Britons should together direct "the transition of Indian policy." The desperate, starving hordes of post-war Europe must be succored by United Nations action. Terroristic Nazis must "mainly" be executed and Germany occupied for "a longish period." German children should not "be punished, or made to suffer if it can be avoided." "Babies," Sir Norman believes, "are neutral."
Old Ladies Are Snubbers. In his flight Sir Norman often comes within range of Author Straight's noisily effective multiple pompoms. Make This the Last War keeps blasting away at the Angellian wings. Unlike Sir Norman, Author Straight gives himself no political label, apart from urging his readers to join the International Free World Association.* Like Sir Norman, he hopes to see post-war continuation of United Nations controls. But there the two part company. Author Straight sees the world as indivisible, not only for purposes of national security but for the very existence of nations.
The British imperialism denied by Sir Norman not only exists for Author Straight but is grossly shared by the U.S. Where Sir Norman speaks proudly, of British developments in India, Author Straight is horrified by India's "arrested development." India, he insists, has been kept deliberately as a source of raw materials; her industrial capacity has been ignored so as to preserve her "raw" relation to industrial Britain.