Most people in England watched all these things with disapproval
and dismay. Gradually, as time went on, they drew further away from
the French policy in Europe. It seemed to them bad business and bad
morality. From a business point of view a great number of hard-headed
people in Great Britain could see no sense in demanding payments from
Germany beyond her power to pay, and in holding her by the throat
so tightly that in any case she could not pay. Unemployment and
bad trade in Great Britain were seen to be directly caused by this
situation in Germany, which at one time had been England’s second
best customer. It was not only the direct trade between Germany and
England that had declined, but it was the indirect effect of Germany’s
economic downfall all round the world. If Germany bought less wool
from Australia and less grain from Canada, then Australia and Canada
bought less manufactured goods from Great Britain. If Germany were
not trading profitably with Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, then those
countries could not buy the same quantity of British goods. Germany was
the axle-tree of the great wheel of European trade which had broken
its spokes and lay in the ditch. Until the old waggon was on the road
again England would not recover her commerce. The French cried: “What
about our devastated regions? Who will pay for reconstruction if the
Germans are not forced to do so?” The English shrugged their shoulders
and said: “What about our devastated trade in Liverpool, Manchester,
Glasgow, London, and a hundred other cities where men are out of work?”
Less than ten years after the beginning of that struggle in which the
youth of these two countries had fought side by side for the same
purpose, and with the same ideals, there was a friction between England
and France which obliterated the memory of that common sacrifice in
many minds and created suspicion, dislike and political hostility.
The French Press and people abused the British for their materialism.
“That nation of shopkeepers!” they cried. “They can think of nothing
but their trade interests. They would sell their soul or their best
comrade for a mess of pottage!” They forgot that they also were out
for financial interests, that their policy was dictated by the desire
to get reparations out of Germany. And although England advanced
commercial reasons for relieving the pressure on Germany, she had
other reasons which to the French seemed sheer hypocrisy, the most
sickening cant. The English people and their sister nations do not like
kicking an enemy when he is down, nor treading on his face when he lies
prostrate. The old traditions of sport, strong even in the Cockney
mind, bid them shake hands with the other fellow when he has been
counted out after a knock-out blow. They do not believe in “hugging
hate.” They have an instinctive sense of fair play. It is not too much
to say that these were the overwhelming reasons in the minds of the
average Englishman which made him dislike the entry into the Ruhr and
the Poincaré policy of “keeping the Germans down.”