SUMMONS TO YOUTH

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 153, 16 July 1937, Page 16

SUMMONS TO YOUTH

Mr Baldwin Urges Crusade For Democracy 'SAVE ITSELF FOR ITSELF' Youth from all part« of the British Empire were summoned by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to "save democracy from itself." In what he said would be his last address to a large audienee before his coming retirement, Mr. Baldwin fcelkigly traced the tfourse of British selfffovernment and of world social currents over the past half contury. Tbe "English secret" of political selfgoverncnent and of peace sentiment backed by resolve, he said, is the Christian teaching of the individual's worth, as opposed to theories which defy either personal rulers or the state. "You have to shuw the world, and in many parts of it an exceedingly critical world, that theie is nothing in democracy and its principles, its purposes or its methods, which naturally breeds timidity of outlook or medioority of achievemeut," he said. Discipline Necessary. ' ' Courage, discipline aud efficiencj are as necessary to democracy as they are to any dictatorship, and democracy implies and demands leadership as essentially as any dictatorship, for it is a leadership which has not force behind it; it is the leadership of faitli and character, and demoeracy is crying to you today for the leadership of the next generation." In characteiistic manner, Mr. Baldwin declined to prcdiet the "shape of things . to come. ' ' Post-war uphea vals were attributed to the basic sinfulnesa of war itself. He criticised the oversimplification which blames any class, nation, or individual for world unrest, for conditions which cause Europe to be "neither at war nor at peace." "Armed attention" is the phrase h« used.

"But what is worse than this, peace in some quarters is proclaimed as a ,bad dream and war is glorified as an ideal for rational men. As long as the British Empire lasts we will raise our voice against these false gods. "Let. me end in this, the last speecii I shall make before a great audienee as Prime Minister of this country, l«r me proclarn my faith, which • is tlie faitli of millions of all races from end to end of the British Empive: • , "Here we have ceased to be an island, but.we aro still an empire and what is hor secret? -Freedom, ordered freedom within the law, with force in the background and not in the foroground; a society in which authority and freedom are blCnded in due propoitions, in which state and citizen aro both ends and means. An Empire, organised for peace and for the free development of the individual in and through an infinite variety of volilntary assoeiations. That neither defies the state nor its rulers, . . . The Christian State procJaims hu-man personality to be supreme; the service State denies it.

Religion Put First. "Every compromise with the infinite value of the huraan soul leads straight back to savagery and to the jungle. Dispel trutli of our religions, and what' follows? The insoleuce of dominion and the cruelty of despotism. Denounco religion as the opium of the people, and you '11 swiftly proceed tr denounce political liberty and civii liberty as opium. Freedom of speech goes, intolerance follows and justice is no more. "The fruits> of the free spirit oi men do not grow in the garden of tyranny. ..." "The brotherhood of man to-day is often denied and derided and called foolishness, but it is in fact one of the foolish things i.i the world which God has chosen to confound the wise and the world is confounded by daily. We may evade it: we may deny it, but we shall find no rest for ourselves nor the world until we acknowledge it as the ultimate wisdom."