218 J.-A. PEMBERTON
territory.’^461 A similarly breezy attitude towards what was ultimately at
stake in regard to the colonial question was conveyed in Parliament by
another Labour parliamentarian: Frederick Montague. Montague urged
consideration of the possible disposition of mandates to Germany under
the auspices of the LON and ‘subject to guarantees of disarmament and
the observance of proper colonial practice.’ He then declared that it was
a fact that ‘the common people of this land will not murder Germans
wholesale for the sake of a splash of the tropical red’.^462 Responding to
Montague’s urging, Anthony Crossley, a Conservative parliamentarian,
stated plainly, ‘Germany has left the League of Nations.’^463
Writing in the Times on November 2, 1937, Noel-Buxton, a
‘near-pacifist’ who had been an opponent of colonial transfers when that
prospect was first canvassed in the 1920s, argued that if one were cer-
tain that Germany was bent on aggressive expansion eastward in Europe
then it would be reasonable not to offer it concessions but instead to
make preparations for war. However, he went to state that in the absence
of such certainty, ‘it is incumbent on us not to increase the incentive to
the Germans to embark on such a disastrous course.’ In answer to the
deep disquiet expressed by some at the prospect of colonial rule by the
National Socialists, Noel-Buxton declared that Germany had a ‘real con-
tribution to make to the fund of talent in science and organization’ of
which Africa was in urgent need and that the ‘greatest injury that could
befall the natives of Africa would be war, which the denial of colonies to
Germany might well produce.’^464 Responding to fears expressed about
the prospect of colonial rule by the National Socialists during the dis-
cussion of Nicholson’s presentation, Noel-Buxton claimed that although
(^463) 321 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th series), March 15, 1937, 1686.
(^464) Lord Noel-Buxton, letter to the editor, Times, November 12, 1937. See also Wood,
Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem, 113–14. For Noel-Buxton’s earlier support of
a policy of colonial retrocession and pacifism see Wood, Peaceful Change and the Colonial
Problem, 63, 68, 113.
(^461) Ibid. See also Wood, Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem, 119.
(^462) 321 Parl. Deb., H.C. (5th series), March 15, 1937, 1687. Frederick Montague posed
the following question in Parliament: ‘Do the Government believe that the manhood of
this country will throw itself into another war of unnameable horrors for the continued
possession of mandates in Africa, for Togoland for instance? If they, do they must be mad.
Our people will fight for defence and for honour, but they will not fight for mandates’
(ibid., 1685).