Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1939. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1939. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY.

4 TN the address at Montreal which was reported yesterday, Earl Baldwin said that: “The success of democracy depends upon everyone realising his or her responsibility to it. Making some necessary allowance for human limitations, this observation by the former British Prime Minister must be accepted as a simple statement of fact. It is being emphasised in various ways at Hie present day that if .freedom is to be enjoyed it must be turned to good and wise account, and it has been said with truth that the German, or rather the Nazi ideal of a Fascist world revolution “is a challenge to our whole western civilisation.’’ It is in particular a challenge to the system of democracy which is regarded by the English-speaking peoples and some others as by far the most important and valuable feature of our civilisation.

Democracy at the stage to which it has evolved has its great and admitted ■weaknesses. It is not in doubt, tor example, that if the responsibilities of democratic citizenship were as well recognised and acted upon as they ought to be, the problem of unemployment which exists today in virtually evert democracy would he overcome speedily, it indeed it had ever been allowed to arise. The continued existence of unemployment on a huge scale, in the United States, the greatest and most powerful of the democracies, and on a considerable scale in Britain and in many other democracies, including New Zealand, must be attributed at bottom to a defective sense of social responsibility. The means of abolishing unemployment undoubtedly exist, but are not being used.

While the weaknesses and shortcomings of democracy are not to be denied, it is still possible to assert with complete confidence, as Lord Baldwin did at Montreal, that our ideals are far harder of accomplishment than those of the totalitarian States because they are far higher. It is probably true that world democracy is menaced today much less on account of its weaknesses and defects than because nations that are not democracies have debased their standards in a degree that threatens to bring about their own destruction and that of modern civilisation.

Lord Baldwin, in his address, credited the totalitarian States with ideals, but in application to the present day policy and practice of Germany, Italy and Japan, for example, ideal is a word of definitely limited and specialised meaning. Under the name of ideals, the Fascist dictatorships and Japan are pursuing aims of unchained ferocity and international brigandage. It is only by the force at the disposal of these nations, and certainly not by anything that ('an be regarded as elevated in their aims and practice that the democracies of the world are threatened.

It has been said that the Nazi regime in Germany, even if it swept half the world, would in the end collapse owing to its inherent instability. It is a system of government depending wholly and solely on brute force, at the will, as Lord Baldwin observed, of one fallible man. The Nazi regime proceeds from excess to excess in internal and external policy. From any standpoint of constructive progress and of human advancement, the Hitlerian tyranny is vastly inferior to many of the barbarian empires which had their day in the remote past. Equipped, however, with the tremendous agencies of destruction which modern science has placed at their disposal, the German dictatorship and its international associates are in a high degree formidable.

The almost overwhelming task that confronts world democracy today is that of halting or repelling the aggression of dictatorships which acknowledge no other law than that of force, and at the same time of upholding worthily ideals of human freedom. Tn these conditions Lord Baldwin did not exaggerate in any way when he said that democracy itself and government have become a great adventure. The danger is in plain sight that the world may be’ plunged into a catastrophe of war in which civilisation would be liable to collapse. i

The hope also appears, however that ii: a final catastrophe of world war can be averted, an impulse may be imparted to human progress such as the world has not yet seen. It is in the extent only to which the affairs of nations are governed from what may be called fairly a lunatic standpoint that world war is .threatened. It has never been clearer than it is at. the present day that the ideals of democracy are magnificently worth upholding. Given time for peaceful effort it is entirely open to the people of the democracies to offer a lead in human advancement which will undermine and defeat the aggressive dictatorships without the firing of a shot, or the striking of a blow. The overshadowing question at the moment, unhappily, is whether the energies and powers of democracy are to be absorbed, in the immediate future, in a. struggle for mere existence.

TRADE AND OTHER STANDARDS.

J-JJGU standards of accuracy and a dispassionate outlook might, reasonably be expected to mark the proceedings of a gathering like the congress of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire. Extended reports by mail, however, of discussions at the congress of that organisation held recently in London include some passages in which accuracy and fair play appear alike to have been disregarded. One delegate, for example, was credited with the statement that:— New Zealand’s restrictions (on trade) were greater than the restrictions of any other Dominion at the moment . . . Even with its concluding words of qualification, this assertion is extraordinary. On the facts meantime available, New Zealand rest riel ions on imports from Britain appear to have been thus far of small total effect. During the six months to June .'!() last, for example, our imports from the United' Kingdom were valued at £NZ13,479,145, as compared with £NZ12,981.498 in the corresponding six months of 1938. Thus imports from the United Kingdom in the period in which restrictions were in force were greater by £XZ497.647 than in the period in which no restrictions had been imposed. As to New Zealand’s relative position in trade with the United Kingdom, the “Official Year Book” shows that in 1937. the latest year for which full comparative part iculars are available, New Zealand’s imports per head from the United Kingdom were valued at £l2 15s 5(1. This pul New Zealand easily at the head of the list. The Dominions next in order were:—Eire. £7 5s 9d ; Australia, £;) 10s Id; South Alrica. £4 Is , 7fl; Canada. £2 IDs. In purchases per head from the United Kingdom. Denmark headed the list of foreign countries with a figure of C 4 9s sd. It is unlikely that the total position here disclosed has yet been altered in any very material degree ami in light of these figures, the wild inacciiracy and injustice ol' the assertion that New Zealand’s restrictions are greater than the restriction:; of any other Doumiou may be realised.