TWO VIEWS OF DEMOCRACY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 146, 10 April 1942, Page 8

TWO VIEWS OF DEMOCRACY

DEMOCRACY. THE THREATENED FOUNDATIONS. By Reginald Lennard. Cambridge University Press, 1941. DEMOCRACY MARCHES. By Julian Huxley. Chatto and Windus, London, 1941. N this war, as in the last, we are told that we are fighting to make the world safe for democracy, and again, only with more caution and less faith, we are

examining the implications of this claim. There are comparatively few people in the British Commonwealth who do not look upon democracy as the way of life and government that they would wish, but while some maintain that we have been living in a democracy for two hundred years, others deny that we have ever really been democratic at all. The question which faces all of us is how to crystallise the various interpretations into a faith that is worth not only dying for, but also living and working for. The Present and the Future These two little books attempt this task. Both are short and easily read. Both give historical sketches of democracy in England, and both outline the big changes that have taken place in recent years in health, education, and social services generally. In the first Reginald Lennard defends something which, as the sub-title implies, he believes to be seriously threatened. He is more concerned with conserving what is good and tolerating what is not so good than with surveying a quicker road to a more democratic state. In the second book Dr. Julian Huxley goes further and looks forward to the adjustments which we must make in our ideas to safeguard democratic ideals in tHe future. This, as well as his informal and provocative style-the book originated from: a series of broadcast talks in America-makes his book easier to read, and most people will find it the more stimulating of the two. He points out the need to face the danger of an antidemocratic revolution, not merely from exalting the State above the individual, but from the refusal of certain sections of the community to co-operate for fear of losing certain privileges of wealth or caste or the security and comfort implied by these. Here is a typical passage: The lesson of history is plain enoughthat threatened systems react blindly and violently, that doomed interests find a desperate vigour and can inflict terrible damagein their last struggles. If it be urgent for us to be on our guard ‘against reaction, it is even more urgent that we should try to visualise the new kind of society that we want, and to take practical steps to bring it into being. Reintegfation is the only ‘answer to integration, and democratic reintegration the only effective way of prev venting fascist or anti-democratic reintegration. Must Be Prepared For Change So far as the future is concerned, he lays down three principles which a new democratic social service state must take account of if its policy is to be active and positive and not merely one of regulatory tinkerings. One is a national minimum for its citizens; a second is comprehensive planning; and the last is the development of "backward areas," by which he does not mean Dartmoor or the Welsh mountains, but the Deep South in the U.S.A., the native peoples in Africa, and the industrially-depressed areas of Britain. Further he believes that democracy between nations is not only possible but essential. It is not enough to admire, love, and defend our institutions. We must also be prepared to change them,

HOW TO PLAN WARS

PLANNING THE WAR. By Lieut.Colonel Clive Garsia. A Penguin Special. 150 pp. HE author is a New Zealander with long service in the Imperial Forces, He has a military respect for order, and a more than military passion for achieving orderliness in an orderly manner. He argues that it is necessary not only to have good plans, but to have a good method for making plans. This he proposes should be achieved by his system of " automatic " planning. To understand this, readers had better go through his book. They will need to go right through it, for Lieut.~Colonel Garsia has models for everything except how to write without giving pains to a reader wishing to follow an interesting argument. He digresses, he diverges, he performs many evolutions before he finally evolves, and even his furore has sub-clauses and parentheses. But it is worth the trouble to follow him. He leaves so many thoughts behind him that the careful reader will be supplied with a means of interesting himself in solitude or argument for the rest of his life, So much it is necessary to say to thank Lieut.-Colonel Garsia: for making more evident the poverty of this world in common sense. The book itself is planned to supply our lack of it, Lieut.Colonel Garsia sets down rules and regulations for planning wars, probably in despair that any one will ever contrive to manage such large matters merely by the use of brain power. He offers a rule of thumb, and so finally reduces the last remnants of romance remaining to the biggest industry on earth. (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) But shocking as it may be, he is right. War is too big for us. Civilisation itself is too big for us. We destroy ourselves with the incompetence inherent in our puny size against our huge accomplishment. We are lost in a maze of our own contriving. Lieut.-Colonel Garsia points to what he believes is the way out. On his flanks he brings up many wise observations, much interesting fact. It remains doubtful whether these support the idea which is his centre: that a set of rules can quickly conquer mankind’s disadvantages among the monsters of his own creating. It remains even more doubtful whether they can be conquered any other way, so Lieut.-Colonel Garsia wins up to a point. At that point the rules stick in the mud of human sensibility, which suspects regulations and rules, and which will not be entirely convinced by Lieut.-Colonel Garsia’s remedy for making these static things as dynamic as they should have to be if "automatic planning" were to be effective. Among the many thoughts or philosophies this extraordinary book creates in the reader’s mind there is this: that it would be reassuring to know that our war has been or is being planned as well as Lieut.-Colonel Garsia would have it planned. So long as it works out no better, the Lieut-Colonel will deserve more confidence than the generals he trips so neatly when he relates his system to current facts. But it still leaves an uncomfortable feeling of incompleteness to believe with Lieut.-Colonel Garsia that human intelligence has failed so badly it must be supplanted with a sort of mathematical brain with reason but ---

without rhyme.

S.

B.