If Hitler Comes Read Online Free PDF Page B

extremity to which modern leadership had brought the nation. Labour leaders spoke of painfully won social reforms, and asked who would be their guardian now. All pleaded that the House might, at the last moment, take a mighty risk to redress a great error; all, at the same time, clearly knew they were making valedictory speeches.
    On the Government side there was gallant wishful thinking. Backbenchers exhibited a renewed faith in Nazi promises, and the Lord Privy Seal almost made it appear that Great Britain, out of sheer altruism, had condescended to help Germany in her European problems. “Naught”, he said, with sublime inappropriateness, “shall make us rue.”
    Chamberlain’s unforgettable speech will find its way (if civilization survives) in the school history books. “Peace was mylife’s ambition, but not this peace.” His voice trembled when he said that it was his faith in his country’s courage and integrity that had enabled him to make the great experiment of Munich. Could it be that faith was unjustified?
    Evans rose to wind up the debate. One was aware of the strange similarity between the two men. They had many ideals in common, and were equals in sensibility, but Evans had no strength of character.
    The House held its breath. Who knows but that in that brief moment there lay the chance that a great leader might have seized, to rescue England, if not from destruction, then from shame? Did the House feel that the shades of Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone were crowding round the last holder of their great office, begging, even commanding him to shrink from the final betrayal? If so, the moment passed, and soon members were settling down to listen to an uninspired recapitulation of all the arguments which, during the last six months, had been brought to defend a policy of surrender. There was a sense of anticlimax as, rather unexpectedly, the Prime Minister sat down; and the question was put. No-one had the heart to challenge a division; the last formalities were rapidly attended to; and, in the midst of an intolerable silence, the Speaker rose and left the Chamber. British democracy , fruit of centuries of struggle on this hallowed spot, had gone by default.
    Few of the faithful Commons could trust themselves to speak, either to themselves or to the familiar, courteous attendants, as they struggled into their overcoats and were gone. “Who goes home?” Many, many things, that would not bear thinking of. 

Chapter Two
“BLOOD IN BRITAIN”
    F ATE , you may remember, allowed Sir John Naker three days in which to enjoy the full triumph of his foreign policy. Three spring-like days they were, so that, discarding an overcoat, he could walk jauntily across the Park each morning to the Foreign Office, surveying, through the burgeoning trees, thegallant towers of Westminster, symbols of the mighty State machine that he had set rumbling on the course he had chosen for it. They were honeymoon days, with the diplomatic wires buzzing with congratulatory messages, from Göring, from Ribbentrop, from Hitler himself, while the British Press played up nicely and the Stock Exchange boomed. There was no need for him to listen at Cabinet meetings to the tale of woe of the Minister of Labour; he, Naker, had now provided the international conditions for a trade revival, and it was for the other fellows to take advantage of them. Still less need he bother much with the Egyptian Ambassador who kept anxiously asking for certain assurances, and for a promise of mediation in some incipient dispute; trust him, Naker, not to interfere in anyone else’s Lebensraum . Soon it would be time to settle some of the details of the brave new world, and Hitler’s State visit, expected in May, would be a busy time for him; meanwhile, he felt he could afford to climb with leisurely aplomb into the biggish niche that history, he was sure, had provided for him.
    So I read his attitude, but I do not pretend to know what came into his