THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 January 1921, Page 3

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

IS NATIONALITY DOOMED?

LONDON, November 23 Dean luge, at King’s College, on “’11)0 Modern Apothesis ot State and Nation”: The <god State has gone with the Kaiser into banishment. The question is whether wv are to have States at all in the future. The new revolutionary movements are all frankly anti-demo-cratie. Ballot-box democracy has seen its best days. The question before the world is whether the principle of nationally has been so discredited that it is going to be abandoned, and a unique civil war of the classes put in its place. The great issue before the world today is not between monarchy and democracy hut between nationalism and internationalism. While we, following humbly in the wake of America, have been airing our fly-blown phylacteries, and chatting about making the world safo for democracy, the world has been girding itself for a much grimmer choice.

"Th=, League of Nations is based on the principles of nationality. Lie nations were to ho units, entering into the League as units, and supporting it as units. For this reason, if the League of Nations ever comes into effective exi denoe, the. revolution will do all in its power to undnrmine it. We English, as usual, are so slow to understand what is going on abroad that we do not realise this, and muddle-headed persons may he found supporting the League of Nations and expressing sympathy with Bolshevism. It is impossible to define a nation except as a body of men who believe thes lves to he one. It has nothing to do with language, tor the Scotch speak two languages, the Belgian and Swiss three each, and the Americans at least a dozen. There it* nothing, especially sacred about the State, which, so far as it is identified with the Government, may he the least respectable of all the social organisms to which we belong. To worship the State is to worship a demon who has not even the redeeming, quality of bring intelligent. EXTREME DEMANDS. Lord Askwith, at a National Political League meeting:— “During the war Labour, to some extent, suspended its work, and is now coming forward, without control, with the most extreme demands. This movement requires watching and guarding against. ' The Syndicalist doctrine is one of violence, class hatred, and destruction, with no thought or skill for reconstruction. The Syndicalist sa\s that the State and the country are of no importance; that one class alone is to he consider <l, and that the one object of the worker is his stomach. We arc not accustomed to tyranny of that kind, and do not propose to have Lenins and Trotskys here. (Cheers). We cannot afford to sit down and watch the insidious movement that is going on, but must educate t-lre ignorant in commonsense, the traditions of the country, and the importance of unity. I believe that the League will work with care and watchfulness to prove that the ideas which are preached at every street corner are not those that have brought the country to its greatness.”