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Hokitika Guardian, 27 May 1926, Page 2

When' the “advanced” labour leader is on the stump there are frequent references to internationalism. Labor has its ‘‘international” conferences, and some British labor leaders are pleading not only for “Socialism, in our time,” but also for “Internationalism in our time.” This plea is a negation of country, and all that the country stands for. To follow it out to the logical end, as an English writer has noted, it would mean ceasing to call .ourselves Englishmen, and being citizens of the world. The Socialist who aims at internationalism

has his sneers always for patriotism. For what, if w e come to analyse it, asks the writer, is Internationaliem but a scheme for taking from us all that we hold most dear! Love of tommy is the origin of the finest and most, unselfish deeds that mankind is callable of, hut the Internationalist sneers at patriotism and pretends that the only difference between man and man is that of position, not that of race. Ju other words, the Russian Bohshevisk, the South Sea Islander, the Australian aborigine are the “brothers” of the English working man; his “enemy” is his English employer. Internationalism aims at the destruction of all national customs, traditions and even sentiments. It would even aim, no doubt, at the destruction of individual language and art, and we should he compelled to take in some horrible jargon and to write hooks and paint pictures only from an international proletarian standpoint. Internationalism, in brief, wants not merely to destroy nations, but individuality. It wants to make us all alike, it wants to abolish progress by forbidding thought, and it wants to pour contempt and oblivion upon all the glorious heritage of national history and achievement. Idle dreamers pretend to see in Internationalism the end of all rivalry, but, as a matter of fact, the only thing they would see is the end of all happiness and romance. A patriot is proud of being a citizen of his country, with a pride that looks beyond any momentary personal feelings, hut an Internationalist has no tradition and therefore no deep roots in anything. As a matter of fact, the majority of lnternatonalists advocate this barren and impossible creed because they hope, by killing a man’s love for his country, to make him turn his attention to that nonsensical bogey, the “class war.’’