“The frontier of Britain lies upon the Rhine” declared Mr. Baldwin loudly.

“Quite,” murmured the chief official of the Government laboratories. “And tomorrow all of us who remain alive will know you to have died with that conviction. Would you now kindly take a pill please.”

“By honouring our obligations we set an example to the wo-r-r-ld”, announced Mr. Ramsay Macdonald dreamily.

“Exactly sir, and the remnants of the British nation will honour the memory of your Cabinet which so unhesitatingly sacrificed itself in the spirit of true leadership.” The chief official of the Government laboratory again held out his box. “Would you also kindly take a pill. Their action is rapid and quite painless sir.”

This imaginative scene of future history may at first seem fantastic and bizarre. But when we examine the matter more closely it is a highly practical issue, affecting the lives and happiness of every man, woman and child in these islands, that a law should be passed which will compel any group of elderly statesmen to commit an honourable and painless hari-kiri, once they have taken the momentous decision of again plunging this country into a European war.[2]

The assassinations at Marseilles might well have proved another Serejevo. The legions of Central Europe sit snarling round little post-war Austria. The Polish corridor rankles like an ulcer in Germany’s guts and, above all, the momentous plebiscite for the Sarre basin is to take place in January next.

Hitler will be a ruined man if he fails to secure the return of the Sarre as an integral portion of the German Reich. France, armed to the teeth, is determined to act if he tries to force the issue. A few shots fired by either side and we are liable under the Pact which our Government has made to enter into a war against the aggressor.

But these are only the more outstanding among a dozen causes which might lead to an upheaval, and it is becoming more generally recognised upon all sides that at the present rate of rearmament a fresh European debacle is practically inevitable.

Let’s face it then. What will happen when it does come ? There is a very strong anti-war feeling in this country. Such books as Sir Philip Gibb’s brilliant novel, “The Cross of Peace”, and Mr. Beverly Nichol’s “Cry Havoc”, both of which, to my mind, should be compulsory reading in every school, together with a large and truly patriotic section of the press do much to foster the growing opinion that Great Britain should stand out in splendid isolation, refusing absolutely to be involved in any further continental squabbles.

Do not deceive yourselves into thinking that these intelligent humanitarian will avail you anything when the clash occurs. In 1914 [3] we were not vulnerable to immediate attack. There was at least time for us to endeavour to adjust our lives to war conditions before the bulk of us went down into the maelstrom that cost the nation a million lives and the accumulated treasure of three generations. Next time it will be different.

Science and the perfection of machines have advanced with incredible rapidity; it is now a generally accepted fact that if war were declared tonight, large areas of London and many of our other principal cities would be laid waste before the dawn.

Make up your minds to it therefore that if an incident arises whereby Britain is liable to fight under one of these criminal Pacts and the Government decides to honour the obligations they have entered into the effect will be instantaneous.

There will not even be the few hours respite necessitated by the despatch of mobilisation telegrams. One terrible night a few words will come over the ether from Broadcasting House calling up every ex-service man – then the wireless will be jammed. The press will be ordered to print propagandist articles to the effect that Britain has once more done the right and proper thing, and gone to the aid of poor little so-and-so. The Defence of the Realm Act will be invoked to bring the civil population into line. All vital supplies will be commandeered immediately and those of us who survive the first aerial attack will collect our ration cards from the local authorities in the morning. Every soul in the country will find himself in the grip of [4] those relentless ordinances which did not quite smother personal liberty in the last war until 1917. The steel shutters of the war machine will have closed down upon every form of protest and argument.

Mr. Beverly Nichols may just as well chuck his typewriter into the Thames for all the use it will be. It is quite certain that the Press would never be allowed the pathetic appeal for us to keep our heads and refuse to commit suicide which he would doubtless write. Sir Philip Gibbs might, as a last resort, sally forth to Trafalgar Square in the hope of influencing a small section of the community to retain their sanity by word of mouth. But even that forlorn hope would be doomed to failure at its inception. It is unlikely that there would be any crowd for him to address. Air attack would be imminent: the police frantically endeavouring to control the torrents of motor traffic streaming out of London, and the poorer people who had no means of flight, hurridly seeking shelter in the tubes and deep places below the city from the hurricanes of death which would so soon be making the dark streets hideous.

This is no exaggerated picture but a reasonably accurate forecast of the appalling fate which may overwhelm us without the slightest warning one night a year hence or a month hence just as we are sitting down to a cheerful supper, unless we can devise some concrete means of putting a brake upon those responsible for our safety.

Who is it that has the power to give this one fatal order which [5] will uproot the whole fifty million of us from our peaceful lives to cast us again into carnage, crushing anxieties, ruin and mourning ? Certainly not the people.

If it is the relatively small question as to whether one section of the community should receive a smaller income by the cutting of unemployment benefit or the income of another section be increased by fostering trades through a protective tariff, politicians stump the country airing their views for weeks. The Government is compelled to go to the nation upon such issues, but when it comes to a question of our very lives, we are not asked.

Even our elected representatives in Parliament have no say. Some meber of the Cabinet has been sent to Locarno or some such pleasant spot a year or so before and duly signed upon a dotted line to which the seal of Great Britain was attached.

By this he has added to the general gaiety of nations with the one exception of our own and receives the foreigners’ praise for having pledged a million or two of his countrymen to a sudden, untimely and ghastly death.

A few years later the scrap of paper is produced with this gentleman’s signature upon it and we, being Britishers, are expected to honour the pledge he has given in our name.

When the time comes as it quite possibly may next January – less than a hundred days from now – some twenty gentlemen will sit round a very handsome table in Downing Street and without any reference whatsoever to you or me, discuss if we are to honour the [6] obligations which they have undertaken or not.

Since it is they, or at least one of the most influential among them, who signed the bond, their natural inclination as honourable gentlemen will be to carry out their undertaking.

Even to suggest that they would plunge us into war unless it was their absolute conviction that the eventual suffering of the nation would be greater if we stood out – should be unthinkable. But we, the people, who are not considered to be fit judges of these Pacts which our leaders choose to make, believe in our ignorance that no matter how many bullies may wave their swords on the continent, nothing but the defence of our Empire and our homes can possibly justify our taking up arms again. We have a right then to demand some concrete token from our leaders of their utter faith that there is no possible alternative before we allow them to send us to our deaths.

Statesmen in antiquity sacrificed their lives willingly in order to impress their countrymen with their unshakable belief in the rightness of certain policies. The Japanese today endorse momentous decisions by committing hari0kiri and welcoming death as the supreme gesture to their nation that they have done what they have done out of their innermost conviction, and when war does come countless young men will surrender their lives, not in the ordinary exigencies of the struggle, but voluntarily.

They will be asked to cover retreats by holding machine-gun [7] posts in the face of an advancing enemy with overwhelming odds. They will be asked to run speed boats packed with explosives under enemy piers. They will be expected to go up if necessary in ill-equipped machines and sacrifice themselves in the defence of our cities against enemy war-planes and, mark you, these will be young men with all the possibilities of life before them.

Cabinets are nearly always composed of elderly men who have already had the best out of life, and whatever Government may be in power at the time makes little difference. Neither Mr. Baldwin, Sir Stafford Cripps, Mr. Macdonald or Sir Herbert Samuel are likely to be called upon to take up a rifle in the event of war, but at least, should they ever decide to give the fatal order, they could endorse their decisions by the final resignation, which through their act would be the inevitable portion of countless thousands of their countrymen.

“Who would carry on?” you may ask. Well, it would be a ghastly and terrible affair if an anarchist should happen one day to throw a super bomb through the window of No. 10, Downing Stret while a full Cabinet meeting was in session, so that the entire Ministry was blotted out. Yet I cannot think the dole would be increased or the income tax go down. The laws of the land would remain unaltered and administration of every kind go on just as before.

Therefore, if the whole Cabinet committed hari-kiri on the outbreak of war, there is no reason whatever to suppose that their posts could not be filled within the hour by equally brilliant, though [8] possibly younger, and perhaps more active men.

A fantastic suggestion, perhaps, a little bizarre, and rather horrifying that twenty or so elderly likeable citizens should be compelled to end their lives a few years before their time. But when one considers the incredibly terrible issue which is involved we are more than justified in demanding that some such break should be placed by law upon the arbitrators of our fate for the happiness of us all.

What other adequate insurance can anyone suggest which might curb the impetuosity of these visionaries who have already signed these Pacts committing us to war? If Mr. Macdonald is so anxious that Britain should lead the world to a permanent peace, let him cease reducing our armaments to below safety level and instead give this example. The people of other nations might well follow suit and compel their Governments to pass a similar law.

Then if our cabinet considered it imperative that untold misery should again be forced upon the nation, as men of honour they would take the Pill of Honour, and go down to history honoured as no other Government has ever been. After those twenty deaths another million of us would march again with real conviction back into the shambles – but not before.