IDOLISING THE STATE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1940, Page 9

IDOLISING THE STATE

OBEDIENCE REPLACES MORALITY.

“The Nazis have made an idol of the German State, and openly maintain that obedience to it takes the place of all morality,” said Viscount Cecil, in a recent address. “In fairness we must remember that we also have had a school who proclaimed the doctrine of ‘My country right or wrong'.’ That is indefensible; and the great bulk of our nation has always recognised that British Governments must themselves be ruled by the principles of truth and justice. That is what we mean when we talk of the Supremacy of the Law and insist that the sovereign power itself owes allegiance to the supreme authority of religion and morality. But in Germany and in some other countries it has not been so. For them the old doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, which we repudiated, has been transformed into an idolatrous worship of the State. It is this pernicious creed, of which Hitler is the latest exponent, that has led to the horrors of the persecution of German subjects at home, and the waging of cruel and unjust war abroad. For in the end worship of State means worship of force/’