Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1941. A UNION OF DEMOCRACY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 February 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1941. A UNION OF DEMOCRACY.

TN his farewell broadcast in New Zealand last evening. Mr. Noel Coward had something to say. by no means in overoptimistic terms, as to the possibility of bringing about a 11111911 of the English-speaking nations as a means of stabilising Western civilisation and safeguarding peace when it has been re-established. On the broad issue thus raised, intelligent and thinking people can have only one opinion. With the desitability widely reepgnised of building up a strong and lasting association of all free and democratic nations prepared to act unitedly in mutual defence of their ideals and their security, the idea of Anglo-American union as a first great step in that direction claims and is receiving much attention. Influential groups in both the I mted States and Great Britain are said to be backing a vigorous campaign startl'd by .Mr. Clarence K. Streit, author of “Union Now, lor a lederal union of the British Commonwealth of Nations and the I nited States. According to a recent port. — The Inter-Democracy Federal Union, as the organisation which Mr. Streit formed was called, asked for the convening immediately of an inter-continental congress composed of one representative for each five millions of people, or major fraction thereof, in the English-speaking world, having the power to levy war. contract alliances. conclude peace, establish commerce, and "do all other acts and things which independent States may do." The congress would be composed of 27 Americans, 11 Englishmen, three Canadians. and two Australians. Irishmen, South Africans and New Zealanders. Incidentally, to show that his original idea of a union of all the free peoples of the world had net boon abandoned. Mr. Streit announced that all other democracies could ultimately have entree to the Anglo-American Union. There have been other more or less parallel proposals in both Britain and the United States. The “New Republic" one of the leading liberal weeklies in America, devoted a recent issue- to the subject, urging that the I nited States and Great Britain should assume responsibility and leadership for the whole world, excepf that part of it at present under the heel of the totalitarians. The “New Republic,” to quote a correspondent’s summary, proposes joint organised policing of the trade routes of the world and jointly organised world trade. It examines in great detail the enormous burdens that have fallen on smaller countries, still neutral, as a consequence of the disorganisation of their European markets, and outlines a scheme of Anglo-American control of the wheat sugar, coffee and oil surpluses of the world. It asks that both Britain and the United States shall assume responsibility for the task of seeing that "he who is now going hungry shall be fed. whether he can afford to pay for it or not," and for the establishment of industries in countries where they are needed. Those who are least inclined to be optimistic about the piaetieability and prospects of elaborately devised schemes of federal union should be prepared to recognise that mutual action by the English-speaking nations —action which must, adventure boldly into the economic field—may become the only means of consolidating and safeguarding world peace when it has been re-established. That an early achievement of federal union is an essential condition of success in this all-imporiant enterprise is not. however. obviously made manifest. Undue haste in attempting to institute a cut and dried scheme ol lederal union very possibly miffht accentuate and confirm disunity. At the other extreme, there is the danger of creating merely an impotent debating society, such as the League of Nations became in the hands of those who were not prepared to make a practical use ol its machinery. H is to be hoped that much more wdl be heard of this question in the immediate future in both its political and economic aspects, winch evidently are incapable ol isolated treatment. The minimum demand, if future security is to be attained, appears to be that the English-seaking nations should agree to co-operate in establishing and safeguarding peace—that agreement of course connoting tin invitation to all free nations to pool their efforts and resources to the same end. Immense difficulties may impede the measure of agreement that would ensure prompt, practical and positive combined action on these lines, but the alternative evidently will be to leave the way open for new Hitlers and Mussolinis to arise and lay the world desolate. HITLER’S SHRILL SCREECH. [ ! ITLER presumably still has a strong hold on the German people, but * 1 even when full allowance is made for Gestapo terrorism it is astonishing that he should be able to retain that hold while pouring out rubbish of the kind that appears to have formed the staple of his screeching oration on the eighth anniversary of his accession u> power .As he has been reported thus far. the mutter of the ■ p«'i'ch. in deliver.ng which he screamed and coughed and spluttered, appears to have consisted of a string of extravagantly and preposterously false assertions incapable of deceiving a moderately intelligent child in Germany or anywhere else. The Fuehrer's crazy self-assurance jivrhaps touched its climax when he set Germany's "social programme" against Britain's "exploitation ■ f the workers." Our democratic ways arc imperfect enough anti we have an indefinite distance to travel in the mastery of social problems am! the extension of social justice, but ;,t least instant suppression would be the fate of anyone who sought to mtlicl on the ;.>ei j.le of anj British country the infamies of exploitation that arc :hr pri-tem lot of Unpeople of the Reich, not to speak of '.h>- unhappy inhabitants of those countries, meantime invaded and subjugated, upon winch Hitler ami his gang have set their mark of the b. ait Though they are favoured in a degree as compared with these victims, the people of Germany todav are exploited, overworked and underfed, be ide.; being m r-up:--,! ..mi degraded, m furtherance of the vile ambitions of ;i man whom wise .conicmporaric'. would long ago have placed where hr could do no barm. .Much as it breathed lunatic fury, the Fuehrer's a:m;\< r-..i y speech lie made wild threats, for instance, of what Nazi Germany would tin to the United .Stales if that country should dare to (io wh.it Hitler and everyone else in Germany pre.-timabiy knows it is doing already i.e. intervene m the European war. It is true that the United States : i,. ; formalh nveiared war ■ Germ; t y am! may newr in> ■ . i>.;' American factoim- already are pourm < out w.m materials ami - mein of manv itmds that will help not a little to ensure Germimt . defeat. ..ml ’the Am<-t ican natxm Is mustering am! orcamum; it em-rg.es for a mighty expammn <>f the; material aid to Brilam and lie: allivi. If liith-r •.’.■ant;: a catra- ~f deadly quarrel with the Un;!<-d Statei.e ha; it now in brimming measu-e m 'hat (•••unlry'- < v« : .ncre.i .t.g contribution to the extit palm-ti of L'.,zism It i. not will-., ait sigmlicam e that instead of pushing the matter to its logical coiiclusion. Hitler is content meantime to rave Incidentally it may be noted that the Fuehrer embodied no mote Nazi Germany "never had .my interests m the Americ.m continentThe truth is that agents of the Nazi dictatorship ur<- -.mi long have be, t: hmdy m-tr.e m subversion < I’ort. mt only m. many !...t.i: Amei ne.m coimiries, but m th,- United State.'; The i.'iVcstig.itions of lite !>:< Committee have brought fully into the light the fad that the Bund, fuiaitced and controlled from Germany. v. o;-; : hi:; nr tit.M i .illy in the hope of cmancipa’in;:" tin- thirty million .pl,. ,4 German (!-• '■••in in the United S’.a'o- fr -m tile sm:U ,f Ameriean dc:m>erm-v. ,imi . ' dc-itrir.in;’ tl'.at democracy' 'i m.t t'm -.- < .'!• rt -i.urimd am! derided by a’ vast majority -f the Arne: ican-. of German <!,-cen'. d. . , ~ ;i ge, t <•!!> •!.!<■!> .-.nd fab It)' -if ii 'b"t i '."!e <--j f ', ;, ■ It bodes by .no mean'; .•.<ll f"i' Hitb-r and f -r N,..-i Grr:::.,:;;/ • the United States. Hl till rds < f a cable message, has ''r-.irt.-.-• : ■ threat made by Intle: m bn '.perch tin.-.e •b. ■ th' t, - •f ( il'll .11 ' Ip‘ !' ‘. 1 'l' ■ ■ • i wil • :/,••."•’’H/etS-le .th them "