2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 197had not had to demonstrate in 1918 that the ‘interests’ of the German-
speaking residents of Alsace-Lorraine would be taken into account and
that they would not be ‘transferred like cattle.’^385
Lytton countered Berber in stating that the reason why speaker after
speaker had emphasised the need to consider the interests of the popu-
lations in colonial and mandated territories was because the populations
in such territories were ‘particularly helpless to defend’ themselves. For
this reason, Lytton stated, they needed ‘access to the protection of pub-
lic opinion somewhere in the world,’ either the protection of ‘the pub-
lic opinion of a metropolitan country in the case of a colonial area, or
the protection of the international public opinion represented in the
Mandates Commission.’ It was not ‘merely evidence of hypocrisy or
insincerity,’ Lytton advised Berber, to insist that should the question of
the transfer of colonial or mandated territories ever arise, there would
need to be an investigation of the ‘opportunities for the free expression
of public opinion’ in the country desirous of such a transfer.^386
(^385) Winston Churchill, n.d., quoted in Lugard, ‘The Basis of the Claim for Colonies,’
- Lugard echoed Churchill’s statement to the effect that to transfer colonies would be
to treat the inhabitants as cattle in the course of his lecture at the Royal Empire Society
in November 1936, See n. 376 above. In 1938, Sarraut stated the following: ‘The ces-
sion or sale of one of its colonies would be an especially odious act on the part of any
European colonial Powers....[T]o transfer a colony for a political advantage, that is to
say, a collectivity of human beings, like one transfers cattle or foodstuffs is properly-speak-
ing slave-trading. German speaks at every opportunity of her honour; thought England,
Belgium and France speak less often of theirs, they have no less care for it.’ Albert Sarraut,
1938, quoted in Maroger, L’Europe et la question coloniale, 286–87. See also Chalmers
Wright, Population and Peace, 125. Chalmers Wrights gives the year in which Sarraut made
the above statement comment. For Berber’s comment concerning the German-speaking
residents of Alscace-Lorraine, see International Studies Conference, Peaceful Change:
Procedures, Population, Raw Materials, Colonies, 467.
(^386) International Studies Conference, Peaceful Change: Procedures, Population, Raw
Materials, Colonies, 469. Emanuel Moresco stated of the need for accountability in relation
to colonial administration the following: ‘Without parliamentary control and criticism in
the home country there is little hope of redress of grievances against colonial administra-
tions...But it so happens that most of the European colonial Powers govern themselves
by parliamentary institutions, and that the dissatisfied Powers are dictatorships; nowhere
can a parliamentary vote be expected for transfer under these conditions. Even the most
backward tribe, voiceless and unable to make up its mind on the issue, could not be
handed over like so many head of cattle.’ Moresco, ‘Claims to Colonies: Markets and Raw
Materials,’ 326.