Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [70]
Smuts and Botha made much of German cruelty toward the natives. White South Africans by contrast, said Smuts, understood the natives; indeed, they had done their best to give them a form of self-government. “They had established a white civilization in a savage continent and had become a great cultural agency all over South Africa.” Now there was a chance for the peoples of Southwest Africa to share in these benefits. The territory was already tied to South Africa by geography; on all grounds, it made sense simply to make one country out of two. Wilson listened sympathetically. He liked both men, Smuts in particular, and, while he was not prepared to back down, he made it clear that he felt a South African mandate would be so successful that the inhabitants of Southwest Africa would one day freely choose to unite with South Africa.8
Clemenceau, the chair, then invited the “cannibals”—a little running joke he had with Hughes—to present the case for Australia and New Zealand. Waving a grossly distorted map which showed the lands he wanted—New Guinea and nearby islands such as the Bismarck Archipelago—practically touching Australia, Hughes demanded outright annexation. He cited defense (the islands were “as necessary to Australia as water to a city”) and Australia’s contribution in the war, the 90,000 casualties, the 60,000 killed and the war debt of £300 million. “Australia did not wish to be left to stagger under this load and not to feel safe.” Although he could not say so openly, the future enemy Hughes had in mind was Japan. The Australians had also considered using the argument that the locals welcomed them with open arms, but when the Australian government carried out some inquiries in New Guinea it found that the inhabitants much preferred German officials, who had let them go their happy head-hunting way. There would be unlimited access for missionaries, Hughes said in reply to an earnest question from the president: “There are many days when the poor devils do not get half enough missionaries to eat.”9
Massey, brandishing his own map, made a long and rambling speech on behalf of New Zealand’s claim to Samoa. New Zealand troops, at “great risk,” had occupied the islands at the start of the war. (In fact, the greatest risk came from boredom as the occupiers sat for the next few years downing huge quantities of beer.) The Samoans were not savages but very sensible people, and they wanted New Zealand rule. (Meanwhile, the Samoans were presenting the local New Zealand administrator with a petition demanding American rule, rule from London, rule by any power except New Zealand.10)
Wilson, who could not bear Hughes in particular, listened with an obvious lack of sympathy. The French watched with amusement. They did not like mandates and they did not mind seeing disarray in the British empire. “Poor little Hughes is swelling up with pseudo importance,” wrote a member of the Australian delegation. “Of course he is being used as a Catspaw by the French who want the Cameroons, Togo Land & Syria.”11
A few days later, the French minister of colonies, Henri Simon, was moderation itself when he spoke to the Supreme Council. France only wanted two little pieces of territory in Africa: Togoland, which ran inland along France’s West African colony of Dahomey (Benin), and the Cameroons, also in West Africa, which Germany had managed to pry out of France in 1911. (In addition, France wanted an exclusive protectorate over Morocco, but there was no need to mention that.) He preferred annexation, said Simon, as being more efficient and better for the natives. All France wished was to be able to continue its work of spreading civilization in tropical Africa.