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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 1, No. 19 September 6, 1938

Colonial Interests

Colonial Interests.

Similarly, in the economic field: Britain had trivial colonial interests in Abyssinia and comparatively unimportant ones in Spain. She has thrown other people's babies to the fascist wolves. The fascist states must expand or bust. We have seen that Britain has had no imperialistic (i.e., strategic or economic) reason for opposing their expansion; it remains to see why she does not want them to bust.

The British ruling class has not forgotten that in 1918 revolution swept Europe, it has not forgotten the post-war temper of the English people, rising to its height in the movement that forced the abandonment of Poland in 1920. The interest of the ruling class in fostering reaction in its appropriate forms at home and abroad has quickened in the permanent crisis [unclear: capitalism], when at any time a war or a cyclical depression may create a revolutionary situation. In such a situation the eloquent example of a Left government in a European country might just make the difference between revolution and no revolution, So in 1935, when Italian fascism was largely discredited at home and Italian industry was desperately in need of expanding markets, the rulers of Britain tricked their electors and permitted a colonial war firstly to divert the attention of the Italian people and secondly to provide a market for munitons and capital goods and to reduce unemployment by conscription and colonial public works.

Similarly when the invasion of Spain in 1936 drove the liberal government to the left, Britain decided that the government must not win. And the government is bound to lose, for when Italy and Germany have consolidated their economic stranglehold on rebel territory, Britain will allow them to send in enough men and armaments and munitions to win the war in a week or two.

Who now can say that Britain has no foreign policy or that she has been humiliated? Her position has not deteriorated strategically, she has lost no colonies, she has preserved reaction on the Continent.