Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1934. FREEDOM OR SLAVERY ?

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 71, 24 March 1934, Page 12

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1934. FREEDOM OR SLAVERY ?

When Mr.: Bernard Shaw confronted the reporters and photographers assembled on the deck bf the Rangitane to welcome him to New Zealand, he had, according to our report from Auckland, "a-smile for everybody," hut nevertheless declared with an air of mock solemnity: "You want to hear the same things I have said fifty thousand times, but I am not going to say them." And then, after facing the cameras like a man, he spoke for nearly an hour, partly on topics of his own choosing" and partly in answer to questions and interjections which were handled with unfailing promptitude, resource, and good humour. . It was an astonishing achievement, both physical and intellectual, for a man who is nearly eighty, and the firsts impression that it made was one of wonder and ex-! hilaration. But second thoughts are less favourable; The wonder remains; but the exhilaration has gone. It has been banished by the realisation that it is an> essentially pessimistic and barren gospel that was temporarily disguised by that contagious gaiety, arid that Mr. Shaw has really nothing better to offer us than a blank negation. Some of the things -that had been said fifty thousand times—more or less—-be-fore were, in spite of his disclaimer, repeated, and those of. them that would have been better not said atji all gained nothing by the repetition. Paradoxes which may have a stimulating effect at first cease either to shock or to amuse when they are repeated too often, and- though a paradox has been described as a truth standing on its head it is not put right by being brought- to the Antipodes. Oner of the strange effects of a war which was supposed to have made the world safe for democracy is that it has destroyed democracy in many parts of the world, made its position precarious in other parts, and played into the hands of despotism everywhere. One of the victims of this great reaction is Mr. Shaw himself. Once a fervent democrat, he has now a profound contempt for democracy and elective Parliaments and a vaguer but apparently equally genuine admiration for dictators. So obsessed is he with his new faith arid his new scepticism that he started talking about it before he had landed. His fervour along these new lines is such as to recall the remark that was provoked by the sight of a Scotchman in an exceptionally large pair of trousers, "converts are always enthusiasts." If Mr. Shaw expected to shock us or even to interest us by such talk, he was completely mistaken. Though we.-were at first tooi polite to say so, it merely set us thinking, what he has so often said to the British people, "Don't be silly." Our wits are not so sharp as his and our faith in democracy is less dogmatic than it was, but we see no sense ■in aggravating our present troubles iby destroying or weakening the institutions that have rendered us good : service in the past until we have some definite idea as to what is to take their' place. A Parliament which is far from perfect is at least better than chaos, and so far chaos is the only -alternative that Mr. Shaw has to offer. .. ■■• '•'■ ~' ■

There is another point on which New Zealand differs from Mr. Shaw and agrees with the great country in which he seeks to weaken her confidence. If our faith in democracy lias been shaken by recent events, our faith in freedom is probably stronger lhan ever. Can Mr. Shaw say as much? Nearly two years ago he wrote a pamphlet entitled "Common Sense about the War." Common sense w.as the very last thing that most of us expected from Mr. Shaw, on such a subject, but we certainly got it in his reference to .Germany as "the monster: all freedom-loving men hate." Today Nazi Germany is a far more dangerous enemy to freedom, external and internal, than Imperial Germany ever was. Internally, freedom has been completely destroyed by the most admirably organised and ruthless extermination that our times, or probably any other times, have witnessed. The allpowerful regime of Herr Hitler is built upon . terrorism and persecution and hatred and lying and the systematic poisoning of the sources of knowledge. The methods still in operation a year after its institution were indicated on, Monday by the report of the terrible sufferings of the 1800 prisoners—doubtless all or nearly all political prisoners—in the concentration camp at Oranienberg. The "writer was an escaped prisoner and the first thing he heard on his arrival in London was that "his wife and baby had been arrested as hostages because of his book dealing with experiences." Yet Nazi Germany

is not to Mr. Shaw "the monster all freedom-loving men hate," but a shining example of the "discipline" that he admires.

We do not desire for a moment to suggest that there is not much in the discipline of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin to justify Mr. Shaw's admiration, or that this young democracy is not just as seriously in need of discipline as the older ones, and perhaps even more so than any of them except the United States. But democrats have hitherto considered that there is all the difference in the world between the self-discipline which is freedom and the discipline from without which for a nation is tyranny. As Mr. Shaw has renounced his democratic faith, it may be that this dis: tinction no longer appeals to, him, but one- would like to know where exactly he stands. Both freedom and slavery, tyranny and dictatorship are all vague terms and admit of degrees. But, not to put too fine a point upon it, Mr. Shaw was plainly talking nonsense when he said that the Russian workers were only slaves for eight hours a day. They are slaves for the whole twenty-four hours, unless they may be considered free to dream as they please during their sleep. They are at the beck and call of the State all the time, and though Mr. Shaw may be pardoned the stretch of language by which he describes Englishmen who work for twelve or fourteen hours a day without State compulsion as "slaves," there is a vital distinction between democratic Soviet Russia and democratic Britain. The tyranny of Russia as of Italy and Germany does not stop at the conscription of manual labour. It applies to intellectual labour also, to the Press, to authorship, to education, to politics, to discussion of every kind, to every phase and activity of the national life. Does Mr. Shaw consider any of those departments to be worth saving from the iron hand of the dictator? One of the most unpardonable things he ever did was to sneer at the "virtuous indignation" of, the opposition that was .offered, to the beginning of Signor Mussolini's cruel; coercion of the Italian universities. Imagine his submitting his own intellectual freedom to such, a tyranny! ; A fraction •of I.per cent, of the insults that Mr. Shaw has for .years been persistently pouring on most of ;the' national ideals of Britain would have made him a prisoner or an exile if he had tried the experiment in any of the countries whose Government He professes to prefer.. Professor Beasley's remark that Cicero had no objection to assassination except as applied to himself has its analogy in Mr. Shaw's academic passion for a dictatorship. That ■.■■"force; is no remedy" has been a watchword of British Liberation ever; since John Bright applied it to the troubles of Mr. Shaw's'native country about half a century ago. If had been anticipated by an even greater Irishman than Mr. Shaw a century previously. In his plea for conciliation with the American polonies Edmund Burke declared force to be "not an odious but a feeble instrument" for keeping them within the Empire. Freedom' was the alternative that he suggested. Slavery, he said, they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soilj, They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can. have from none /but you. This is the commodity of price, of-which you have the monopo]y. ' ■■ .

This" commodity of price, which was refused to the American colonies, has long been enjoyed by New Zealand and has saved her from either external or internal tyranny. She appreciates its blessings far too highly to think of exchanging it for the weed which in the soil of Russia, Germany, and Italy is nourishing with greater luxuriance than ever.