The Nazi way, the British way
Hans Frick, the
Nazi German interior minister, made a speech that practically issued a
prospectus for the Sudetenland crisis of the following year that was to lead to
the Munich agreements. He stated that the time had come to settle the question
of German speaking minorities in eastern European countries, in particular the large
Sudeten minority in Czechoslovakia. Ominously he asserted that their future was
tied up with Germans of the Reich itself. The German minorities were described
as deserving special treatment because they were “factors of order, constructiveness and
loyalty”, which rather begged the question of where their loyalty lay. It also
contained the suggestion that they were somehow superior to the majority,
essentially Slavic populations.
British policy in
Palestine was subjected to detailed questioning by the League of Nations
Mandates Commission in Geneva. When it was put to William Ormsby-Gore, the
British Colonial Secretary, that there was no clear policy as to the future, he
elegantly played back the flimsy justification for British involvement, in
practice rule: the mandate of the League itself. This, he claimed, meant that
the League had to bear part of the responsibility. A British Royal Commission
had advised partition into Jewish and Arab states and Orsmby-Gore rather
thought that this would be the ultimate outcome, ignoring the fact that the World
Zionist congress, also meeting in Geneva, had just voted against the proposal.
Dubious share
offerings were costing British investors an estimated £5m per year and the
Government set out its plans to act. The “share pushers” forerunners of today’s Boiler-room operatives were to be curbed by insisting that only specially registered
businesses were to be allowed to sell shares to the public. The threat of
removal from the register alone was supposed to provide a sufficient deterrent
against misconduct. Sceptics noted that the report did not cover the City of London, home to "reputable issuing houses" and concentrated on the Provinces. It was well received in mainstream financial circles.
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