DICTATORS’ POWERS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 April 1933, Page 7

DICTATORS’ POWERS

THEIR GROWTH IN AMERICA. DOMINATION BY PRESIDENTS. BUENOS AIRES, March 16. Domination by Presidents, leading eventually tot dictatorship, either civil or military, in which the State loses touch with the people, is the chief contributing factor to the unrest prevailing in South America, according to M. Andre Siegfried, the distinguished French writer, after a tour of the Americas, north and south. He remarks that he noticed in the United States, Mexico and Central America the same tendency to magnify unduly the powers of the President, with the reservation that, at Washington, a reasonable check is provided in the Senate.

Dictators have felt that, to be successful, they must suppress freedom of speech by means of a powerful army and police; that they must dispense patronage widely, in order to diversify control, and to squander public money. The existence of autonomy is rendered precarious by frequent scHure of control in States or provinces. As a result there is no independence ; no parties, leaders of organisation ; no middle class as it is known elsewhere; and no public opinion, as no one seems responsible for the general welfare.

As to the working classes, the task of organisation, outside the cities, is impracticable, owing to vast distances poor, communications and the heterogeneous racial amalgam, ramifying outward from the white Worker on the dock to the guaclio on the pampa, to the Indian peon, who is practically inarticulate. Yet, M. Siegfried finds democracy turning, not to communism, but to radicalism. Throughout the masses there is a grudge against the power and status of the European. If the Indian achieves social cohesion, lie may become dangerous, not by direct action, but by refusing to co-operate, after- the manner of Gandhi. .

“One receives the impression of a society still only partly aroused, with a remarkably refined aristocracy, but lacking the indispensable framework to provide a truly national ' culture,” he says in summing up. “A definite culture does exist, Spanish bj" tradition and French by the education of its intellectuals; but this is-foreign in origin when it should be rooted into .the soil of South America itself. Under the circumstances, the fundamental problem is the creation of ah indigenous culture, of which the leading South Americans! feel the need. It will be an immense task, blit they hope it may be realised .within the coming century.”