230 J.-A. PEMBERTON
such conquests.^510 Churchill’s response to the prime minister’s declara-
tion of December 2 seemed to be crafted so as to nip in the bud any
suggestion of colonial retrocession. The same observation applies to the
following statements of Churchill.
If this question of the restoration of War conquests is to be raised, and
if sacrifices are to be made to lay the ghost of hatreds arising out of the
late War, I say that these sacrifices should be made all round, and that all
the Powers who profited in territory by the victory of the Allies should be
prepared to consolidate their victory by sharing in and contributing to any
measure of appeasement which may be agreed upon to those who were
defeated. There must be no singling out of Great Britain to be the only
Power to be invited to make these sacrifices. We have heard a lot about the
return of the former German colonies....I should like to say that, though
there are a very large number of people in this country who would be will-
ing to make sacrifices to meet German wishes about the colonies if they
could be assured that it meant genuine lasting peace to Europe, none of
them would yield one scrap of territory just to keep the Nazi kettle boiling.
I therefore welcome very much the declarations we have heard at differ-
ent times, and renewed this afternoon by the Prime Minister, to the effect
that there is no question whatever of any isolated retrocession of colo-
nial war conquests; that we could only discuss such matters in company
with our former Allies; that we should only approach the many difficulties
involved if it were part of a general return by Europe to the old standards
of tolerance and the final healing of outstanding quarrels; and, above all,
leading in the end to an all-round reduction of armaments.^511In the event, the occasion for a more extended study of the colonial
question in relation to a prospective general settlement did not pres-
ent itself: in the following year British diplomacy was preoccupied first,
with Germany’s annexation of Austria and second, with the arrange-
ments for the partitioning of Czechoslovakia.^512 In fact, Prime Minister
Chamberlain informed the House of Commons immediately after the
Anschluss that as far as the colonial question was concerned no action
was being taken. Chamberlain told his parliamentary colleagues the
(^511) Ibid., 1835.
(^512) Wood, Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem, 135.
(^510) Ibid., 1834–835.