The Shape of Things To Come

Archibald Maule Ramsay

If the new-found knowledge of Hitler's anxiety to preserve the British Empire has come as a surprise recently to many people in this country, it must surely have come as a real shock to them to learn that President Roosevelt, on the other hand, was its inveterate enemy; that he was not only a pro-communist of Jewish origin, but that before he brought America into the war he made it clear that he wished to break up the British Empire.

His son, Colonel Elliot Roosevelt, makes this last point very clear in his book, As He Saw It, recently published in the U.S.A.

On pages 19 to 28 of this book, Colonel Roosevelt tells us that in August 1941, his Father, having given out to the American people that he was going off on a fishing trip, actually proceeded to a meeting with Mr. Churchill on board a warship in Argentia Bay.

Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Edward Cadogan, and Lord Cherwell (Professor Lindeman of doubtful race and nationality), and Mr. Averil Harriman were present, he says.

On page 35 he quotes his Father as saying,

"After the war . . . there will have to be the greatest possible freedom of trade . . . no artificial barriers."

Mr. Churchill referred to the British Empire Trade Agreements, and Mr. Roosevelt replied,

"Yes. Those Empire Trade Agreements are a case in point. It's because of them that the peoples of India, Africa, and of all the Colonial Near East are still as backward as they are . . .

I can't believe that we can fight a war against Fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy."

"The peace," said Father firmly, "cannot include any continued despotism."

This insolent talk against the British Empire became so pronounced that on page 31 Colonel Roosevelt reports Mr.Churchill as saying,

"Mr.President, I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire."

This comment was very near the mark, as the President had been talking about India, Burma, Egypt, Palestine, Indo-China, Indonesia, and all the African Colonies having to be "freed."

On page 115, the Colonel reports his Father as saying,

"Don't think for a moment, Elliot, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight if it hadn't been for the short-sighted greed of the French, the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all over again?"

These were not at all the reasons, however, given for the war, and for which Americans thought they were dying; nor indeed does the President make any reference as to the pretexts given to his countrymen for the war.

The British, dying in greater numbers, have on the contrary been told that they are dying to defend their Empire from Hitler's wicked plans. Little do they suspect, that it is their so-called ally who plans its destruction.

The President is reported as saying, on page 116:

"When we've won the war, I will see that the U.S.A. is not wheedled into any plans that will aid or abet the British Empire in its Imperialist ambitions."

And a few pages later:

"I have tried to make it clear to Winston and the others . . . that they must never get the idea that we are in it just to help them hang on to the archaic and medieval Empire ideas."

Those who sup with the devil need a long spoon. Mr. Churchill, the self-styled "constant architect of the Jews' future," now found himself playing second fiddle to an even more trusted architect; so eminent, in fact, that he did not make any silly pretensions of respect for the British Empire.

The earlier Moses, Karl Marx, had denounced the Empire long ago, and in the year 1941, it was only foolish opponents of Judaism and Marxism, like Herr Hitler, who were anxious to stand by that Empire, because they recognised it as a bulwark of Christian civilisation.

Although, as we have seen, Mr. Churchill is shown in this book as getting a little petulant from time to time over the President's pronouncements regarding the liquidation of the Empire, this did not prevent him from announcing himself later to the House of Commons as "Roosevelt's ardent lieutenant."

Under what special circumstances the King's Prime Minister could be an ardent lieutenant of a Republican President, whose design it was to destroy that Monarch's Empire, Mr. Churchill did not explain; nor has he yet done so.

On another occasion, Mr. Churchill made an equally cryptic remark. He assured the House of Commons,

"It is no part of my duties, to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."

No, indeed! Nor was it any part of his duties, on being told that it was to be liquidated, to pronounce himself to be the ardent lieutenant of the would-be liquidator. Nor, we might add, when Minister of Defence, with Admiralty and other codes at his disposal, was it any part of his duties, as Mr. Chamberlain's lieutenant, albeit not very ardent, to conduct a personal correspondence of the nature which he did conduct with President Roosevelt by means of the top secret code of the American Foreign Office.