ENGLAND AT WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1940, Page 7

ENGLAND AT WAR

STUDY AND A TRIBUTE IMPRESSIONS OF IMPARTIAL OBSERVER. AFTER TOUR OF CONTINENT. (By Osfald Garrison Villard, in the London "Daily Telegraph” and "Morning Post” on December 2. 1939 i. Osfald Garrison Villard, the distinguished American writer and editor, recently arrived in London after a four weeks’, visit to Germany. Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Mr Villard, who is a grandson of William Lloyd Garrison and was born in Germany, speaks German fluently He had exceptional opportunities during his visit for studying life and assessing opinion in the Reich under war conditions. Mr Villard was at one time editor of the New York "Evening Post" and also editor and part-proprie-tor of the New York "Nation.” He ■ is a Radical Liberal in politics and has been a strong supporter of world peace.

To come back to the fresh, clean air of England after breathing the foul atmosphere of Germany, so poisoned by its murderous Government's malignity, hate and vituperation—not only against England and every other nation that blocks its way. but also against so many of its own citizens is to enter a new, a wholesome, a free world; is to experience an exaltation of the spirit.

Here men can smile even under the strain of a terrible war. Here they look you straight in the eyes with nothing to conceal or apologise for. Here they talk to you about their hopes, their fears, their aspirations, their desires, without looking behind them to see if they are being overheard. Here they criticise their Government, if they so wish, and close no doors for fear of a Gestapo. Here they have a still free, if not unfettered, Press, and here they tell you that, much as they hate the war and all that pertains to it. this is a job to be done as best it may.

No cant, no self-laudation, no selfpity, no whining. Just a manly, straightforward, clear-eyed facing the future with the same magnificent, cool courage, the same astounding determination that amazed me at the outbreak of the struggle. I have not found a man or a woman enthusiastic for the war —no more than in Germany; and, thank heaven, I have found none who have professed admiration for it as war. I have encountered many who hate the whole institution, dread the outcome of it all, and feel that the blunders of their own Governments in the past have helped to bring it on. But I have met none who did not admit the complete, the essential justice of the Allied cause, whether they believed in war methods or not.

The serious dissensions of 1914 are nowhere in evidence; it is as nearly a united front as it could possibly be, granting the existence of conscientious objection to war; and that united front, without heroics or self-adulation, is still calmly saying that this war must be won if Europe is to be saved, if it is to be a place of habitation of free men.

There has been no referendum of the British people on this war, as 1. wish there might always be in every country, but if there had been there can be no doubt whatever of the size of the majority there would have been. In Berlin I was eagerly asked what was the spirit of the British people, and nothing I told them impressed my hearers more than the story of the quiet young man who sat next to me on the top of a ’bus just before I left for Germany. I had asked him the rank of an ofleer near us. apologising for my ignorance by saying that I was an American.

He said: "You have come to London at an unhappy time. It is too bad that you should see it now." 1 explained that it was not a new city to me, but that I was deeply grieved that war had come to it again.

Very quietly and simply he replied: "Well, it had to come. . You see, I am a young man. I shall probably have to go and may not come back. But there is no use going on in this way. I don’t want to live in a Europe like the one we have lived in for the last five years. How can a young man like myself build a home and found a family if he’s told every six months he must be ready to go to war?”

That, I assured people in Germany, is just the spirit in which England went into the war. Those are the words used to me by porters, taxicabdrivers, waiters —indeed, all the workers I have had time and opportunity to meet. My chambermaid says cheerfully: "We’ll have to go on till wo get rid of that man.”

Underneath. 1 know, the currents of the spirit run fast. Under that mask of calm self-control that has set the Englishman apart for centuries, feelings arc deep and deeply stirred. Underneath the emotions of these me:; and women lies the passion fqr justice —and the passion for justice. 1 believe, is stronger in this country than in any other. My great fear for Epgland is les! the war weaken that passion, lest the zeal for individual liberty, which has been England’s greatest contribution to the progress of the race, be weakened and even destroyed by the war and the war spirit. For war means, as everyone here knows today, the extension of controls, the putting on of checks and reins, the infringement of liberty, which it is sought to justify on the ground that one mus: fight fire with fire, iha.t to defeat a ruthless dictator one must, be as ruthless as the dictator himself. Fortunately, it is in the finest Eng lish tradition that criticism is still heard in the British Parliament. Thi very impatience with war restrictions, the widespread disapproval of phases of the evacuation and of the compulsory billeting, the vigorous opposition to Mr Keynes's scheme for a forced levy on wages for saving, the great desire to keep Parliament in session—• all these arc signs of health; signs that the finest thing in British life, its jealousy of its rights and privileges. is still intact. ...