214 J.-A. PEMBERTON
German claim, pointing out that the fifth of Wilson’s Fourteen Points
was superseded by Article 119 of the Treaty of Versailles on the basis
of which Germany unconditionally gave up its overseas possessions.^448
That he considered the legal case unsound did not prevent Nicholson
from expressing his belief that the case that a wrong had been done to
Germany in depriving it of its colonies on what were ostensibly moral
grounds was unassailable. In this regard he stated the following:
The fact that we desired to seize the colonies and at the same time pay
lip-service to the Fourteen Points led us into one of the most flagrant acts
of hypocrisy that even the Peace Conference committed, and culminated
in that appalling piece of Jesuitical exegesis by which we explained that we
could not give a mandate to Germany owing to her mal-administration of
her colonies in the past. Instead of basing our rights on military victory
(which was a fact), we based them upon a moral comment which was both
ungenerous and untrue.^449Nicholson also expressed a measure of sympathy for the economic
and demographic cases for colonial retrocession, stating in relation to
the demographic case that the possession of outlets for emigration would
largely diminish that ‘sense of claustrophobia that lives on in the expres-
sion Volk ohne Raum.’ As to the German arguments concerning equal-
ity and national honour, Nicholson stated that he was very sympathetic
to them and that he could not reproach the Germans for resenting the
colonial-guilt imputation.^450 Pretending for the moment that territories
under mandate or subject to colonial rule were mere things that could
without embarrassment be bartered away, Nicholson then turned to the
question of what Britain could give Germany. The offer of Togoland
and the Cameroons, he stated, would be regarded by Germany as ‘deri-
sory’ unless added to it was the territory of Tanganyika. Nicholson, then
pointed out that there were a number of very serious strategic objections
to the cession of Tanganyika, such as the objection that its cession would
give Germany a base in the Indian Ocean.^451
(^449) Ibid.
(^450) Ibid., 34–5.
(^451) Ibid., 37–8.
(^448) Nicholson, ‘The Colonial Problem,’ 34.