2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 219there would be ‘keen exploitation’ of the local populations in colonies
administered by the Nazis, the hardship they would experience would
not be any greater than that which they experienced under British
rule.^465 He further claimed that Nazi ‘racial theory would not involve
hatred of the natives like that of the Jews’ on the ground that the former
would not have ‘seized professional positions or laid themselves open to
animosity’; he added, that although there would doubtless ‘be strong
efforts to prevent a population of half-castes,’ this was not such a ‘terri-
ble charge ....certainly not so in British eyes.’^466
Responding to Arnold’s intervention during the discussion of
Nicholson’s presentation, the journalist Wickham Steed noted that
Robertson had correctly pointed out that the second volume of Mein
Kampf had been written not while Hitler was in prison but a couple of
years later. He further noted that it was written with the assistance of
members of the German General Staff and stated that he agreed with
Robertson that the ‘strategical conceptions’ in it were very important.^467
Steed then stated that he had doubted whether anyone in the group
to which Arnold belonged, by which he presumably meant that group
which believed peace in Europe could be bought with colonial conces-
sions, ‘could read German sufficiently well’ to be able to read the book,
adding that Hitler had ‘taken great care’ to ensure that the English edi-
tion was inadequate.^468
Shiels responded to Arnold in arguing that there was not one but
many colonial problems and that in strict terms the question of the
return of the German colonies was not a colonial problem at all. As
Germany had yet to formulate a precise demand in relation to the mat-
ter, he stated, it remained entirely unknown as to which powers were
expected to contribute, whether or not the Dominions were expected
to contribute, how the transfer was to be effected and whether or not
Germany was willing to accept the mandate system. Shiels stated that
German acceptance of that system should be the most important factor
under consideration should negotiations on the question of returning
(^465) Nicholson, ‘The Colonial Problem,’ 49.
(^466) Ibid.
(^467) Ibid., 47.
(^468) Ibid.