What are the interests of Britain’s politics? Why are English capitalists not always allies of the London government? Why does all government on Downing Street gotta number for London City? How much does masonry play in English politics? Are relations with the United States competitive or cooperative? How did the British Empire usage Poland, Russia, Prussia, the German Empire for their own interests and how could it argue with another nations for their own benefit? Roman Dmowski wrote about all these issues almost 100 years ago. As it turns out, despite nearly a century since the survey was written, nothing lost its perceptiveness and accuracy. We print a fragment of Roman Dmowski's forgotten book “Postwar England and its Politics. General remarks" originally published in 1926, whose resumption is just published by Prohibit Publishing House.
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In the days leading up to the large war, it was widely known that the British Empire was the world's largest political system, that England, which was at its head, was the richest state, having the largest manufacture and mainly drawing profits from planet trade, that thanks to the power of its fleet it prevails on the seas, that in matters outside Europe it plays its first function and that in alleged planet politics nothing happens without its intervention. It was besides understood that matters of our continent, European affairs, occupy small space in English interests. The closest issue that England has always occupied very much and in which it has tried to play a leading function was the issue of the mediate East.
We Poles, who centered all our attention on Europe, due to the fact that the Polish issue was a purely European issue, saw in the foreground the politics of Germany and Austro-Hungarian, Russia and France, felt the power and influence of these powers, we understood that Europe's destiny depended on them.
Building any view of England's function in matters of our continent was mostly considered unrealistic. England's attitude towards European countries depended closely on the importance of these countries outside Europe: English policy became active with them erstwhile England felt their competition in the mediate East, Asia or Africa. She held an isolated position, proudly defined as splendid isolation. If she has made a covenant in fresh times, it is outside Europe, with Japan. It was only erstwhile Germany had grown into a naval power, erstwhile their competition began to seriously endanger England in planet trade, erstwhile their political influences, having nested heavy in the mediate East, began to decision towards the most crucial points of the British Empire, towards India and Suez – the English policy came out of its isolation, came closer to France and Russia.
This position of England, in a way outside the bracket of European affairs, this absence of it in these cases was to a large degree the origin of misorientation of many people in Poland who underestimated the power of the anti-German coalition, due to the fact that they could not calculate the strength and influence of England. It did not happen to them that the European war would become a planet war, primarily due to England.
After the war, we had more chance than another nations to believe that England's position towards the European continent had a profound breakthrough. At all turn, we meet with her intervention in purely European matters. Everywhere in these matters, we see her striving for an [fulfillment] arbitrator, and the League of Nations, created to regulate relations between states, and even within states, between individual groups of the population, English is primarily an institution, by the English in its main functions.
This is primarily the consequence of changes on the European continent itself, which was the theatre of war and accompanying its revolution. Austro-Hungary disappeared from the map. Russia under revolutionary regulation has crossed off the list of powers. Germany, the main power in Europe before the war, exhausted by war and mostly disorganized by interior upheaval, after the demolition of a large part of the components of their power, remains and remains – it is not known for what time – in the function of the victorious, who is to fulfil the conditions of a humiliating treaty under the control of the winners. Only 2 large states remained on European land, active in the performance of the powers – France and Italy, which include the joint vigil with England for the implementation of the treaties.
Many reasons are that France and Italy cannot accomplish a common policy. Thus, it is easier for England, which the war and the peace treaties put into the mediate of European affairs, which had far more resources than the continental allies, and which was much little affected by the war directly, to capture the first violin, the guiding function in post-war politics, and even to a large degree the ability to dictate its will.
Today, England is not only the main expression of European hegemony in the world, but it has earned itself, despite the competition of France, to any degree besides the hegemony on the European continent.
Today, all nation in Europe feels that its destiny is mostly dependent on English politics: on the direction it will take, on the goals it will pursue.
For this reason, it is essential for all, and for us more than for many another nations, to realize the best of English politics, to realize its motives, its aims, its consciously chosen paths, and its involuntary from the right course of perversion. It would be a large benefit if we could be able to anticipate this policy in what about further development.
However, the British Empire is so vast, with specified complex construction, with so many economical and political interests, with specified a variety of processes that take place inside it and day by day, fresh issues are born, with so many fronts on which fresh tasks of external policy are being created, that for people standing distant from the rudder of English affairs – it is almost impossible to embrace them. So there are fewer in England, and beyond England there is most likely no 1 able to realize the full scope of English politics, all its issues and difficulties.
We Poles, from the minute we started to get closer to rebuilding our country, saw how much the success of our efforts depends on English politics. Since then we have not stopped and stopped, frequently very sorry, to feel the meaning of England and the power of English influence. All the more crucial to us is English politics to understand.
Unfortunately, we have little data than many another nations to consider ourselves its experts. The sphere of our interests and our actions gives us a very modest chance to meet England straight and look at the mechanics of its policy. And so far we have no 1 among us to dedicate himself to a peculiar studio on English politics. We can at least observe it from a distance, evidence more striking phenomena in its range, and evidence the thoughts that it brings. Nor do I, drawing attention to the following ambitious intention to put forward an English policy system, to present all its main issues and difficulties. I feel able to identify only any issues that, in my opinion, are of large importance for the future. I besides do not have the data to make them exhaustively, and I just gotta halt saying the general thoughts.
I would like to encourage younger people to take care of this subject. This is simply a large necessity, because, in the current global agreement, the external policy of Poland cannot become a policy for a further meth, a large-state policy, unless it understands the location of England, the motives and objectives of English policy.
Roman Dmowski
You can buy a book at a bookstore Multibook.pl