The Evening Star (May 10, 1946)
Moley: After empire – what?
By Raymond Moley
Disraeli must be turning in his grave these days as the Labor government proceeds with a reconstruction of the Empire. Modern Disraelis, like Churchill and Eden, protest loudly, but the partial liquidation goes on. It would go on in any event, but the present government has apparently decided to yield gracefully to the inevitable.
The promised evacuation of Egypt where, it is said, the British have installed military equipment worth $500,000,000, is the relinquishment of a bastion guarding the narrowest stretch of the lifeline.
But there is urgency behind the release of Egypt more fundamental to British interests than the negative control of the canal. The Mohammedan world is restless and Britain must have continuing good relations with it, for the Palestine situation grows no better.
India has been promised freedom and more than 90,000,000 Moslems there want to create a state of their own. That vast population, combined with the Arabs of Asia Minor and Africa, would constitute a power with 150,000,000 people and enormous resources.
This great mass of people and property will have to depend upon British forces and British trade for a generation or more. And, in many ways, the assistance of the United States will be sought, probably in the form of loans. But to believe that the Moslem world will become a well-integrated, reasonably progressive nation is to fly in the face of all the evidence, historical and otherwise. For the most part these Moslems prefer a life, a mood and a standard of living quite unlike that of the Western nations. Such peoples have always been the victims of aggression and exploitation by more vigorous peoples. The problem which the Moslems will present to the world will be the right of a people to live in the easy-going state to which it is accustomed.
This is one example among many of the nature of the problem presented when new national sovereignties are recognized at the same time that a part of old national sovereignties are surrendered to the U.N. How far can the U.N. go in inducing internal progress when internal progress is exactly what a nation does not want? Can the many U.N. commissions, committees and the like on social progress have any binding force on member nations? Surely there will be threats to world security other than circumstances likely to lead to war.
What if a backward nation chooses a form of business dealings with other nations which violates ethical standards generally observed? What if it presents a health menace to other nations?
The U.N. can scarcely limit its social activities to mere propaganda and exhortation. But how far it can go in enforcing its ideals presents an unsolved problem. And the Moslem world is exactly the kind of region which will test the new internationalism to the greatest degree.