RETROGRADE TREND

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 17 June 1933, Page 11

RETROGRADE TREND

Political Intolerance

“|T seems to me that many supporters of "*■ Fascism and Communism in Britain, who are perfectly tolerant themselves, do not sufficiently realise that in effect they are advocating a return to an age of intolerance,’’ writes Mr Bobert Lynd in the “News Chronicle.” “No doubt, many lies have been told about Italy and about. Russia, but the fact remains that in those countries a political opponent is treated as an enemy of the State, just as in ages of religious fanaticism a religious opponent was treated as the enemy of God. In essentials the fanaticism is the same, whether an Italian of independent thought is forced into exile out of Italy or a mob of Nazis break into a Jew’s house and beat him merely because he is a Jew, or a Russian peasant is shot to encourage the others to work. “We may as well face the facts. If the world «< continues to move in this direction, it will bo going backwards. We shall find that we have thrown away the far from worthless achievements of two centuries of civilisation; and we shall have got a new variety of the old fanaticism in exchange. The world can obviously be saved only by faith, but it will be by the faith not of intolerant, but of reasonable men. Only in an atmosphere of tolerance and reason can human beings in their infinite variety live fully, freely, and at peace in each other’s company during their temporary existence on this temporary planet.”