Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1939. TOTALITARIAN FAIRY TALES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1939. TOTALITARIAN FAIRY TALES.

THERE is something almost comical in the zealous efforts of official Nazi and Fascist propagandists to fasten upon the democracies charges of provocative militarism and of monopolising economic resources to the impoverishment of the rest oi the world. In one of yesterday’s cablegrams, Signor Gayda, the mouthpiece of Signor Mussolini, was quoted as affirming that: “Everything proves that the democracies are heading more Papidlv* towards war. Their armaments are losing a defensive character and assuming openly an offensive one. At about the same time, in Germany, Dr Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, was criticising the “almost .inconceivable’ size and wealth of the British Empire and declaring that Germany was inadequately treated regarding the distribution oi the world’s goods and was scarcely able to supply her people with the necessary food and minor luxuries.

It may be hoped that these extravagant falsehoods now obtain little credence even in Germany and Italy, where the suppression of facts and the dissemination of invented propaganda have been developed to the highest pitch of efficiency. Even in these circumstances it must be apparent to all reasonably intelligent Germans and Italians that they and their fellows are in varying degree impoverished primarily and chiefly because their riding dictatorships prefer, as Marshal Goering put it some time ago,“guns to hntter.’

The facts of the position were succinctly stated not long ago by a British Socialist economist, Mr G. IT. D. Cole: — The German standard of living is being beaten down by two main forces—the diversion of man-power from producing consumable goods to rearmament, and the curtailment of imports as a means both to rearmament and to that national self-sufficiency which is regarded as indispensable for war. The Germans must live wretchedly, first because their incomes will not allow them to live any better, but also secondly because they must live already after the manner of a beleaguered city.

Dr Goebbels’s talk about Germany being scarcely able to • supply her people with the necessary food and minor luxuries is so much moonshine. Anything, for instance, that the British' Empire can supply in the way of food and materials is available to Germany at the same prices as those at which it.is available to Britain herself. Sovereignty over colonies is of minor importance from that standpoint. Germany’s imports from her former colonies were never on more than a trivial scale.

Italy’s policy has been on all fours with that of Germany, and in the very recent past the implications of that policy were admitted and indeed emphasised by Signor Mussolini. Addressing the Fascist Chamber of Deputies in May, 1934, he said: —

We must completely get rid of the idea that the time ,of what used to be called economic prosperity will ever return. We are approaching a period of humanity reduced to a much lower standard of living. This need cause us no distress, as the coming generations will be hardy and plain living will suit them. Had this declaration by Mussolini implied an endeavour to elevate the standards of his own nation and others it might have inspired respect. In fact, however, it did nothing of the kind, but went hand in hand with the crude advocacy of brute force which is the leading item in his creed as a dictator. It was not for any noble end, but in order that military power might be built up with a view to aggression that Mussolini enjoined the Italians to turn their backs on “what used to be called economic prosperity.”

At the stage now reached both the totalitarian dictatorships are at an extremely awkward pass. In order to build up military power for predatory ends, the dictatorships have distorted and undermined the economic organisation of their respective countries. They have diverted immense bodies of ]abo?ir from the production of useful goods and the rendering of useful services to the entirely wasteful production of implements and materials of war and the construction of fortifications and similar works. Pursuing the same general aim, the dictatorships have deliberately wrecked a considerable part of their own external trade, and no small part, of the trade of the •rest of the world as well.

It was hoped obviously, to make this evil policy yield dividends either by extorting with menaces such concessions as were secured by Germany in September last—concessions which have robbed the Czechs and other peoples of their territory and freedom—or by engaging in the desperate gamble of war.

As compared even with that of six months ago, however, the position has changed greatly for the worse from the point of view of the dictatorships. The democracies are makinggreat strides in rearmament and are showing an increasingly resolute determination to resist further aggression. In view z of the issues that have yet to be brought to a settlement in Spain and elsewhere, it is perhaps too soon to dismiss the possibility that the German and Italian dictatorships may elect to stake all their hopes on a bid for swift victory. Their opportunity, such as it is, is visibly diminishing, however, and that may account, fully for the note of bitter'complaint sounded by their propagandists.