3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 345the point that ‘between an abstract dominating or exploiting Britain
and an abstract dominating or exploiting Germany there is nothing to
choose.’^375 However, Zimmern refused to accept the framing of the
choice between upholding the existing order or yielding to Germany’s
demands in these terms. He stated that if one were to ‘descend from the
nebulous heights of speculation to the ground of historical reality and
concrete detail,’ one could have no doubt as to which state of affairs
‘our and Germany’s near neighbours’ would choose and no doubt as to
which state of affairs was desirable from the point of view of the world as
a whole’.
In concluding Spiritual Values and World Affairs and against a
background in which Hitler was becoming even more insistent on the
German need for colonies, Zimmern turned to the question of colonial
retrocession.^376 Zimmern acknowledged that the mandate system was
‘something of a make-believe’ as too often only lip-service had been paid
to the principle of trusteeship. He also acknowledged the many ‘short-
comings’ in British colonial government. Nonetheless, he reiterated the
point so often made by retrocession’s critics, namely, that Germany’s
current leaders would not ‘even pretend’ to accept the mandatory obliga-
tions outlined in the covenant.^377
Although he clearly did not accept the following position, Zimmern
insisted that if for reasons of prudence it was thought necessary for
Britain to make ‘substantial concessions’ to Germany, then ‘common
decency’ required that such ‘sacrifices be made out of our own substance
rather than at the expense of our wards’. Zimmern warned that should
the ‘politically immature’ Africans or South Sea Islanders be placed in
the hands of ‘politically immature’ Germany, they would be ‘pressed
under the German steam-roller’ and their social fabric ‘would be broken
beyond repair, like so many other social fabrics...that have been disin-
tegrated under the impact of imperialism.’^378 In Kohn’s assessment, in
Spiritual Values and World Affairs, Zimmern had shown himself, in con-
trast to Carr, to be ‘truly realistic’ and this was because, according to
Kohn, Zimmern judged political issues in moral terms. Kohn added that
(^375) Ibid., 105–6.
(^376) Wood, Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem, 141.
(^377) Zimmern, Spiritual Values and World Affairs, 172–74.
(^378) Ibid., 175–76.