VITAL FORCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1939, Page 6

VITAL FORCES

SUDDEN CHANGES REACT. While Mr Ramsay MacDonald's reputation is the target of slings and arrows because of his later record, Lord Elton recalls in his biography the wisdom of the earlier MacDonald and quotes the following from a speech to the Independent Labour Party, delivered in 1909:—-“We can cut off King’s heads after a few battles; we can change a Monarchy into a Republic; we can deprive people of their titles and we can make similar superficial alterations by force; but nobody who understands the power of habit and of customs in human conduct, who appreciates the fact that by fab and aWay the greater amount qf cur actions is begun, controlled and specified by the system of social inter-relationships in which we live, move and have our being; and still more, nobody who understands the. delicate and intricate complexity of production and ex- , change which keeps modern society going, will dream for a single moment of changing it by any act of violence. As soon as that act is committed, every vital force in society will tend to reestablish the relationships which we have been trying to end, and, what is more, these vital forces will conquer us in the form of violent reaction —a counter revolution. On the morrow of a sudden change we would be fish out of water, and the fish will Wriggle back to the water.” One may well ask, where shall we find a sounder piece of political anatomy, or more lucidly expressed?