Books: Appeal for Aid

FROM ENGLAND TO AMERICA—Henry Noel Brailsford—Whittlesey House ($1).

Last fortnight came the first open appeal by an Englishman of international reputation for the U. S. to declare war on Germany. The pioneer was 67-year-old, liberal Journalist Henry Noel Brailsford, longtime contributor to the Manchester Guardian in England, The New Republic here. His plea, From England to America, A Message, is an amplification of a New Republic article of June 17. In making it, he let out of the bag one of the biggest and blackest cats that shiftier interventionists have tried to hide.

Unlike ancient Sir George Paish, whose doddering singlehanded attempt to jostle the U. S. into World War II made the British Embassy “advise” him to go home at once (TiME, Sept. 9), Journalist Brailsford has no illusions that snaring the U. S. is easy. His method is to state, with great clarity, the peril to the U. S. if England falls. He points out that in that case no commitment, however solemn, short of America’s participation in the war as an ally, can bind the British Fleet to sail to Canada or the U. S. Only if the U. S. were fighting by Britain’s side could British sailors feel guaranteed that they and their ships would be used to reconquer their homes, free their families. Granting Brailsford’s premises, his conclusion is inevitable: it is only enlightened self-interest for the U. S. to join Britain in the war at once.

But aid to England alone is not enough. Ignoring the possibility that in two or three years Britain might herself have an air force that would dominate the Continent as her fleet dominated the seas for generations, he argues that unless England and its fleet, hence the U. S., is to live perpetually under the threat of German air power, that power must be destroyed at its base: Germany must be invaded and conquered. This job the British Empire is no longer strong or rich enough to do. At this point the cat pops out of the bag. Pleader Brailsford declares that only the U. S. can reconquer Nazified Europe—and that means another U. S. expeditionary force. Or perhaps it means that Liberal Brailsford is too logical to make a good prophet.