Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [74]
And then, the General’s voice became solemn at the recollection, on the following day a great crowd of peasants had gathered in front of the town hall as the autumn twilight thickened. The word spread quickly through the crowd. The Treaty had been signed! Like a holy relic the document was carried to the window and shown to the crowd. A great cry had gone up. The church bells had been rung and women had wept and prayed. The Treaty had been signed!
‘But just look at the result!’ cried Matthew, his kindly face transfigured with emotion.
‘Eh?’ said the General, taken aback.
‘Just look at the result! “By our signatures we affirm that we want peace,” Briand declared and yet within fifteen years France and Germany were at war again and the rest of Europe with them. And the reason was this: Locarno was the old way of doing things! Behind-the-scenes diplomacy between the Big Powers. Whitehall and the Quai d’Orsay and the Wilhelmstrasse up to their old tricks again …’
‘I know, his name was Herringdorf,’ exclaimed Brooke-Popham waking up suddenly, but nobody paid any attention to him and presently he dozed off again.
‘And so it goes on. So it has always gone on. If the League failed to prevent this war it was because Britain, France, Italy and Germany, while paying lip-service to the idea of an international assembly to settle differences between nations, were never prepared to submit to its authority. Nor give it the power it needed. Who could take the League seriously when the real business was not being transacted in Geneva at all but aboard a pleasure steamer on Lake Maggiore! The Big Powers have brought this horrible destruction down on their own heads because their half-baked foreign ministries staffed by upperclass dimwits, who have more in common with each other than with the people of their respective countries, preferred to make cynical treaties rather than give real meaning to their membership of the League.’
‘Steady the Buffs!’ said Walter, not in the least concerned by Matthew’s unfortunate harangue.
Matthew’s face had grown flushed as he spoke. In his excitement he had wound a napkin round his clenched fist and delivered a terrible uppercut to the under surface of the table with the result that a miniature earthquake accompanied his final words, causing the glasses to dance on the table. Mrs Blackett, painfully surprised by this outburst for which she could see no sane explanation, glanced significantly at her husband to warn him against pursuing the argument. But Walter, calmly reaching out a hand to steady the tinkling cutlery beside his plate, said with a smile: ‘Strong nations, Matthew, will always take advantage of the weak if they can do so with impunity. This is a law of nature. After all, as you must agree, the disapproval of the League did nothing to inhibit Japan from taking over Manchuria …’
‘Well, exactly!’ shouted Matthew. ‘Because the League was given no support. Because Sir John Simon and the Foreign Office preferred to turn a blind eye to the crying injustice done to China and give tacit support to Japan!’
‘Even without Britain’s tacit support Japan would not have acted differently. Well, François, you’re the expert at this sort of thing, what d’you think?’
‘It is, I’m afraid, very simple. Powerful nations will have their way with the weak. They will see that their own interests are served. No doubt life would be better if both nations and people were guided by principle rather than by self-interest but … it is not the case. It is foolish to pretend otherwise.’
‘Self-interest? But surely a government has a duty to act in the moral as well as the material interests of its people!’ This last assertion, however, was received only with sympathetic smiles. The matter had already been settled to the general satisfaction.
Matthew was still in a state of dangerous excitement and these cynical views might well have caused him to deal the delicate rosewood dining-table another and perhaps even terminal blow but with an effort he managed to control himself. He was aware that in any case he had already