1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 23A good part of the reason why the various proposals which argua-
bly had their origins in Hoare’s speech at the Sixteenth Assembly went
nowhere was because there was growing opposition to ‘yielding coloni-
ally to Germany.’^73 Speaking in the debate of April 8 prior to Butler’s
discussion of the Van Zeeland report, Josiah (Colonel) Wedgewood
noted that ‘[s]peech after speech’ in the debate had ‘turned on the ques-
tion of appeasement’ both economic and political, adding that it was
crucial to consider ‘at whose expense that appeasement is to be made.’^74
Having observed that there was much talk of territorial revision,
Wedgewood stated that it would be a ‘monstrous perversion of justice’
to return colonies to Germany, adding that ‘there ought to be an inter-
national trust in charge of those colonies, throwing them open to trade,
but with the main duty of looking after the interests and development
and freedom of the native inhabitants of the colonies in question.’^75
Claiming that one of proposals in Van Zeeland’s report was that money
be advanced to Germany and Italy by United States, Great Britain and
France in order to stabilise them economically, Wedgewood asked why
the British taxpayer should pay money to dictators in order that they
could ‘build more aeroplanes and make more bombs—so that...they can
deal with us as they dealt with the Spaniards and as they would deal with
the Czechs.’^76
According to Wedgewood, guaranteeing universal respect for the
international rule of law was ‘the only possible economic or political
method of appeasement’ and the only possible means of restoring con-
fidence and that guaranteeing this respect hinged on the method of col-
lective security: the massing of sufficient force in the form of an extensive
alliance system.^77 Wedgewood’s stance on the question of yielding colo-
nially to Germany was reflective of the outlook of many members, of the
party to which he was affiliated: the Labour Party. A pamphlet prepared
by an advisory committee of the Labour Party in 1936 put forward the
argument, one which, according to Wood ‘may be taken as fairly rep-
resenting the Party’s views,’ that the ‘transfer of either sovereignty or
mandatory responsibility’ should be resisted ‘because it would amount
(^73) Wood, Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem, 99.
(^74) 336 Parl. Deb., H. C. (5th series), June 3, 1938, 2487.
(^75) Ibid., 2488.
(^76) Ibid., 2489.
(^77) Ibid., 2487, 2489.