"Had Great Britain stood apart and ignored it's treaty obligations and decided than it was unimportant to look after the national interest then millions would have been out of work within 15 years."
The war wasn't sold on treaty obligations - one of the great catchalls that persuaded young men to sacrifice their lives for 'Poor little Belgium' complete with pictures of nuns being ravaged and bayoneted - a pretended humanity that was sadly missing when Conglese rubber workers were being massacred in their millions and having their hands chopped off.
It was a colonial war for territory and it never pretended to be anything else (until now) - still remember the three volume set of 'The Great Imperial War' on our school bookshelf as late as the early 1950s.
"A pretty naive view on things if applied to the British Empire"
Natives being incapable of ruling themselves without the British Empire - Jay-sus - that takes me back to my schooldays!!
A gentle reminder that Britain was the main instigator of slavery and the powers that be fought ***** hard to keep it in its place until it was replaced by a different kind of slavery of the type that slaughtered a million Irish people (just 60 years before W.W.1). as "God's punishment for indolence".
Colonialism was an appalling system of oppression and exploitation and is now recognised as such in the civilised world (even reactionary Ronnie Reagan used the term as one of abuse when he referred to The Soviet Union as 'The Evil Empire')
But it's great to be back in the mid-1950s for a short visit as a reminder of those arrogant and patronising good old days.
You pair really are stereotype anachronisms
Made my day, you really have!
Jim Carroll