LORD BALDWIN ON DEMOCRACY

Evening Star, Issue 23383, 28 September 1939, Page 16

LORD BALDWIN ON DEMOCRACY

MOST DIFFICULT FORM OF GOVERNMENT NEED FOR THE DEMOCRAT In a speech to the Congress oh Education for Democracy held in August in New York, Lord Baldwin said; He had) talked to the people about democracy, as part of that education of democracy which was now the objective of associations of men on both sides of the Atlantic. Democracy was by far the most difficult form of government that had ever existed, because, whereas the totalitarian machine wasi effective so long as the citizen obeyed, the success of democracy depended on everyone realising his or her responsibility to it —“ thinking of lus duties and forgetting for the time being his rights.’ , ' j “ If he recognises no duties towards a form of government to which he is ready enough to pay lip-service, and to shout for, the day may come when he will lose' his rights by dangers from without or within. That calls for education and character; education in problems domestic and foreign, so as to have material with which to form a judgment, and character so as to concentrate on the essential and to took beyond the immediate effect of a particular action on the fortunes of a favourite politician. ' . “ A democrat should work for and be prepared! to die for his democratic ideals, as the National-Socialists and the Communists are for theirs; but he will never do this unless he is convinced that democracy is capable of making a country worthy of his ideals, which, in the case of a democrat of British stock, is a country worthy of his spiritual ideals “ He may not recognise easily those ideals: he certainly cannot easily express them; but the Bible-reading of 'his ancestors has left so deep a mark upon him that subconsciously he can never embrace a cause gripping his whole being unless ho feels in his bones that it is morally .right. Believing this, I would always stress the spiritual rather than the political foundations of democracy. It is a recognition of the dignity of man and of his individuality, and that dignity and individuality are his as a child of God. “ There is the unbridgeable gult between democracy and the ‘ isms ’ which are for the time being in control of so large a part of Europe. If that be our conviction, with what different eyes we regard our work! Each individual man becomes a human soul with his life to live, and you feel no work is too hard, no drudgery too dull if you can do your little bit to make your country a place in which the environment will help him to that end.”