AMERICA & EUROPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 July 1939, Page 5

AMERICA & EUROPE

OPINION IN UNITED STATES * LIBERAL’S DILEMMA. ISSUES IN THE GREAT WAR. ; Below is reprinted (in shortened I form ) an article from the “New Re--1 public” (New York) as an illustration of the currents of opinion among Ame- . rican Liberals on their country’s at- , titude towards Europe. Its author. Rexford G. Tugwell, was formerly Under-Secretary of Agriculture and ii” -f Mr Roosevelt’s "Erain Trust.” i " ■ '■ man of the New York I . ■ ■' < iwii!;! Cwnmissicn. In 1915 Georgius was loading a series of discussions al Chautaqua, where an honourable tradition in the social studies still survived, writes Mr Tugwcll. He was orthodox in the way Liberals were then —devoted, almost dedicated, to bursting trusts, to freeing trade, to gaining peace, and to establishing week-long rule of Chris- ! tian ethics. He may have been inj flexible, but it would have been with the firmness of a thoughtful conviction I rather than the hysteria of fanaticism. Nevertheless, the preachers and teachers in that green and placid grove had by the end of summer virtually cast him out; he had sincerely felt that he spoke the neglected conscience of the world and had refused to let them escape their professions. He became, for the period of the war, almost a professional pacifist; he was, in fact, gaoled for his unmannerly insistence that the First Amendment might be taken literally. But as | time went on and the war faded away I ih the trailing fumes of settlement people changed; they came round I again to Georgius’ ethical views Instead of being vilified, he was now praised as an admirable instance of unshaken rectitude.

In Washington Square on Ground Hog Day I happened to meet Georgius again, and I was carried back through the years to summer’s end at Chautauqua in 1916. He seemed to have changed but little since then: he was still literal. LIBERAL PRINCIPLES. It was, he said, as we found a convenient bench, a matter of importance that Liberals should have abandoned their principles again. He supposed we might expect any day now to hear repeated the Wilsonian dictum. “Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit...” “Do you remember the rest?” he asked. I shook my head, and he intoned, “... the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Right the law of

the world and cast every selfish dominion down in dust.” He leaned to-

wards me. “Did it? I ask you, did it cast down selfishness, or was it used to make the dominion of Might more secure? And is that not what

, we may expect again?” When, in the world’s history, he asked, could there ever have been a fairer trial of Wilson’s kind of Liberalism than in the short cycle since 1916? Surely we were entitled to judge by results. It was a war fought to victory, a war to end wars, a struggle in which principle triumphed. But where were we? Was it not just where we began—back before Wilson’s conversion to force? It might better be called a war to ensure war. With ghastly emphasis he ticked off similarities. Germany then had sought “a place in the sun,” and ruthlessness had raised its head among a people who knew how to organise it. What was she asking now? And if the old ruthlessness was more intense now, would that not be because of its source in a deeper sense of injustice? Americans then had been persuaded to share a hatred for “aggressor nations.” Did that not easily translate itself into “totalitarian States?” The Germans then had been Huns; they were now at least'“uncivlised pagans.” It was then not the German people; it was the Kaiser who was the fountain of evil. It had become Hitler now. It was considered tactless then to inquire into the relation between Germany’s abilities and her resources; only her methods were to be spoken of. Was it different now? Only a year ago we were all admitting the dangerous divisiveness which had ruled Versailles; now we were savagely resenting the breaking down of Czechoslovakia, set up as an irritant in Central Europe to enforce those principles.

There was no end to these fatal analogies, he said. Britain, in 1916, had been fighting civilisation’s battles; she had now become “our first line of defence.”/ It was said then that the Kaiser was an anachronism, a survival, who believed himself divine, and, since he could do no.wrong, was committed to mad courses which would prove it. The world was unsafe with such an individual at large. He must be exterminated. There was a theory that ho had enslaved the German people and that we had a ! mission to release them. Now, of I course, the soldiers were Brown I Shirts; Hitler was madder than the Kaiser _ had been, and the duty of extermination and release was consequently more binding. It was this kind a uang, of course, which had fed the Kaiser's ago and had really made a menace of militarism in Germany. There had been a choice of way to destroy brutality; German co-opera-tion in civilised progress might have been gained if, instead of armaments, the price had been understood to be. equal access to the world’s resources. Moral leadership. Georgius continued, must always rely on suppression of beastly impulses and the encouragement of contrasting human ones. Reversal of this decision so that what was before suppressed is now encouraged, and what was rewarded is now penalised, can. as we once seemed to know, result in the quick production of social chaos. Was it too late, he asked, to suggest uiat Aamca might use her great m.wn.c ,n oilier ways than she had used ii before. Might we not even curry me world back with us to lhe discipline cf peace, the practice of liberalism, having faith, for once, in ..u.’ more deliberate professions? “Bui how," I asked, “can we do ■ hat without cntangLng ourselves even

G 7'2 AT BRITAIN'S HAND. "’.7c need do no more,” he replied. “ hrn to say that we will not back ‘.lie- hand Britain is playing unless wc are allowed to look at it. In this way we might embarrass the troublemidtcrs in both Britain and Germany, perhaps paralyse the militarists, expose lhe propaganda machines. and find the common purpose we have with the people of all the world. If Britain should refuse to show her hand we should know that the source of her animus lay in her traditional need for a troubled Europe—together with a determined unwillingness to share the colonial wealth she appropriated after the war. If Germany re-

fused to accept a promised access to the world’s raw materials as the price of de-Hitlerising we should know that her madness was real, and that generosity would not cure it. “There will be objection,” he said, “to an active support even of civilised forces if it takes us abroad; but the objection will be much less if we make sure that they are civilised. If we undertake to punish Germany again it ought to be for real rather than fancied wrongs; and it ought to be a curative purge rather than a vengeful one. “England’s record is that of grabbing and of never giving up. Moreover, she is governed by Tories whose policy is only less objectionable than Germany’s own. Even now her appeasement policy involves no least sacrifice of her own. We do not see these things because the curious fanaticism of righteousness has gripped us once more, it is threatening to take us ■nto war again, and the settlement will not be different from what the last one was —the imponderables of technology and geography will find no accommodation in our emotions; they will be left swinging loose again like swords above the naked body oi .ivilisation. “It is not too late,” he leaned for :md spoke with his hand on my nee. “And I am certain that we can justify to ourselves, alone, under the stars, when the insistence of conscience cannot longer be avoided, only decency and the generosity of reason. Georgius looked at me anxiously. He was obviously afraid that what he had said had sounded a little like * i peroration. Perhaps, too, he wa: struck with its incongruity there in ihe sunfilled square, with the children claying and the pigeons calling throatly to one another. As though, I nought, bombs had never been dropped from planes to mangle children's : mbs and tear the throats of pigeons. _’m afraid I said something awkward and inept.