18 J.-A. PEMBERTON
some were willing to give consideration to ‘not merely the distribution
of raw materials but of colonial and mandated territories, under threat
of force’; like other opponents of what was called colonial appeasement,
the newspaper opined that it would be grave mistake ‘to give out of our
weakness.’^57 The only note of dissent in the British press in respect to
the proposed inquiry featured in the Daily Mail, a newspaper owned by
the pro-Fascist Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, whose
papers were known for their applause for the actions of Japan and Italy
in China and Ethiopia respectively which they painted as civilising mis-
sions.^58 In terms of the British press, The Daily Mail was on its own
in uttering ‘a shrill warning against being drawn into sanctions against
Italy,’ asserting that when it came ‘to the point of enforcing sanctions,
“the burden might well fall upon Britain alone.”’^59 The actual thinking
behind the Daily Mail’s opposition to sanctions was revealed by its insist-
ence, in an echo of the Italian press, that the inquiry proposed by Hoare
was an exercise in futility: ‘for what the hungry nations want is territory,
“and only by satisfying this desire can the problem be solved.”’^60
Reflecting a common American viewpoint in respect to European
politics, a London correspondent for the New York Times, namely,
Ferdinand Kuhn, observed that Hoare’s speech suggested that it had
finally begun to penetrate the British ‘conscience that some gesture must
be made toward appeasing the “hungry nations” that are now clamor-
ing for a share of the world’s economic advantages.’^61 Having said this,
Kuhn went on to note that hardly anyone in London had a clue as to
how a policy of sharing resources such as suggested by Hoare could be
realised and that it was generally believed that the British government
(^57) Morning Post (London), 1935, quoted in Kuhn, ‘Britain Is United Behind the League:
Few Notes of Dissent Mingle with Widespread Praise of Statement by Hoare,’ 2.
(^58) Kuhn, ‘Britain Is United Behind the League: Few Notes of Dissent Mingle
with Widespread Praise of Statement by Hoare,’ 2. On the support for Japanese and
Italian aggression on the part of the newspapers of Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount
Rothermere’s newspapers see William Arnold-Forster, ‘The Elements of World Order,’ in
The Problems of Peace, Tenth Series: Anarchy or World Order (London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1936), 23.
(^59) Daily Mail (London), 1935, quoted in Kuhn, ‘Britain Is United Behind the League:
Few Notes of Dissent Mingle with Widespread Praise of Statement by Hoare,’ 2.
(^60) Kuhn, ‘Britain Is United Behind the League: Few Notes of Dissent Mingle with
Widespread Praise of Statement by Hoare,’ 2.
(^61) Ibid.