YOUTH THE PAWN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1939, Page 9

YOUTH THE PAWN

CHILDREN OF MODERN WORLD

THE TOTALITARIAN TECHNIQUE.

Children of the world —a generation tragically enslaved to the vengeance, pride, and lust of militarism’s new aggressions—are emerging as the real hostages of war in the modern conquests by threat and by force.

Totalitarianism is concerned not only ; with arms and the man, but with arms and the child. Dressing the infant in uniform, teaching him to drill and parade, arousing his admiration for the false glories of battle, preparing Rim to fight and to kill is only half of the totalitarian tecliniqqe. The other half is the attempt to pervert the ideals of justice, humanity, and tolerance; to bring the youth to maturity despising the lessons of war’s fulitity which civilisation has laboriously learned. No one has ever counted all the children in the world, but there are well over 500,000,000. And it is regarded as probable that at least 25 per cent of these are either drilling to build the forces of aggression, have lost their families in war, or have seen their homes destroyed, or live in nations where the tension of proximity to conflict, if not actual war. gravely affects their lives.

For war today not only may de molish the nursery with bombs.

Warmakers have learned to demolish the children themselves with false ideals.

Today it is not children that are playing with war. War is playing with children.

A “Famous Victory.”

Bred in this dictatorial atmosphere no little Peterkin and Wilhelmine need ask about a "famous victory,” such as "The Battle of Blenheim” describes. Nor in many lands today would a Southey be permitted this ironic reply:

With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide. And many a childing mother then. And new-born baby died; But things like that, you know, must be At every famous victory.

Under a modern dictatorship little Peterkins do not ask, "But what good came of it at last?” Nor do little Wilhelmines call battle "a wicked thing!" Totalitarian States teach their children to accept rather than to think; not to question, but to subscribe; not to shun barbarism—but to march. It is the plan for little Peterkin to boar arms and little Wilhelmine to bear armies.

Peterkin and Wilhelmine found the soldier's skull which led to their questions as they "sported on the green” during a warm summer evening. War came to these children at play, and so it comes to modern children.

Mitsuo of Japan loves his country and his playtime just as other of the world’s children do. Nowadays, he is given holidays on which to prove his patriotism. On such days, he is one of 12,000,000 children who assemble to cheer and flag-wave Nipponese troops to victory in China—where they have already rendered homeless 500,000 little Chinese children. Playtime has taken on a new meaning for 12-year-old Giovanni of Italy, too. His mother must send him oft' in uniform to march with other boysoldiers, to crawl on his stomach over rough terrain, gask mask securely fas-

tened, miniature rifle in a grasp which might be wielding a butterfly nef. Fourteen-year-old Josefina of Spain —whatever cause her parents may have espoused—loved her home and her family. But today her memory is of playmates killed, of a father unheard from in two years of air raids and starvation.

Little Mei Ling of Shanghai once looked into the sky to see the sun and the stars. She once watched for the birds which had become familiar as decorations on the screens in her home. Now Mei Ling turns in terror from the sky, "where no birds sing.” Now she stumbles through ruins, the dust of gunpowder and debris, to beg for a pan of rice. Totalitarianism and Youth. From even such isolated illustrations it becomes obvious that totalitarianism victimises its own youth equally with the youth in countries against which its aggression is directed. The totalitarian child comes under the influence of his State even before birth. As part- of its new "baby campaign” the German Government has recently decreed that the country's 1.500.000 childless couples are to pay a 40 per cent income tax increase for remaining childless. Premier Mussolini, who wants 60.000.000 Italians by 1950. has ofl'erod "birth prizes," special privileges to large families, holidays for married State employees. pay raises according to the number of children born to a family, marriage loans, and other inducements. Russia has predicted that its present population of 170,000,000 will jump to 300 000.000 by 1971.