THE WORLD AFTER THE WAR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 157, 26 June 1942, Page 4

THE WORLD AFTER THE WAR

WILL IT BE DIFFERENT ?

[S New Zealand thinking yet about the post-war world? Does the man in the streét expect to see great changes or none? What do leaders of thought think? To find out whether anybody is thinking at all "The Listener" has interviewed a number of representative men and women, and presents the result here. It is to be understood that we did not submit considered questions or ask for considered replies. Our prime purpose was to find out whether such questions were in the minds of our fellow-citizens before we approached them.

UNIVERSITY PRINCIPAL HAT are your ideas about the postwar.world?" The Listener asked Sir Thomas Hunter, Principal of Victoria University College. "I have no ideas at all on the subject," said Sir Thomas, "and I doubt whether any one else has either." ANOTHER PROFESSOR "\/E have got to expect the world after the war to be a different world," said another university professor. "Work it out this way. Europe has led the world politically, economically, culturally, in’ the 19th century. It nas, been said that from the point of view of Japan these two wars are civil wars inside the European system which will destroy the grip of Europe over the Far East. It may result in the sorting out of Europe into a different shape, but there will be a different world pattern, not European unless we regard the U.S.A, as an extension of Europe. "As regards New Zealand, we have been an extension of Europe culturally and economically, but we are not likely to remain so. Europe is not likely to need our exports, and it is perfectly clear that, however this war goes, the Pacific will be a matter for the U.S.A., Japan, and perhaps China, and not really any more for the control of the European colonising powers, England, France, Holland. Even if that control is artificially restored, it is inconceivable that we should get back to effective control. Unless there is a complete breakdown, the situation at the end of the war will be something like this: We shall have developed our productive powers to a high level, but we shall have forgotten all about interest payments, lease-lend etc. The whole show will be under centralised control under government supervision or the supervision of other centralised agencies. The problem of the post-war world will be whether the volume of production, both primary and secondary, can be switched over to a@ peacetime consumption without too great dislocation. The danger for the future lies in the difficulty of this switch over, plus the very highly developed central control: LondonWashington, or perhaps just Washington. There may also be pressure in a fascist direction from, for example, demobilised troops. The main safeguard will be economic exhaustion, After all, democracy is not so much a political organisation as the life of

the ordinary man. It is not so much the business that goes on at Parliament House as whether you and I get a square deal and reasonable opportunities." ECONOMIST "ON the whole my view of the postwar situation is pretty gloomy," said Dr. (now Gunner), W. B. Sutch. "We shall have a continuation of the same controls over trade and industry, and this will make difficult the provision of jobs for all the tens of thousands. of returned servicemen. It won’t only be an economic problem, it will be a psychological and social problem of readjustment. But the business of. finding work will be worse than the depression. Then there were something like 100,000 unemployed, but there are something like 160,000 servicemen who must all be fitted into the system and be given real work that will give them self-expression, something that will make them feel that they are contributing to the building of New Zealand. There are also all those who are on the production of war materials; these will have to be transferred to something that is for construction, not destruction. Another effect of the war has been to throw women into industry. They have even in a few cases achieved equality of pay with men. Is this going to be reversed? I rather expect that there will be a strong plea that they are taking the places of men and that they will again be forced back to the pre-war position. "Then we will be faced with what to do with our meat, butter, wool, cheese and so on. At present, we have a firm market in England. Much depends on England whether this will continue. What about the purchasing power of the British public after the war? Judging by what happened after the last war we can’t take too optimistic a view, but for a year or two after the war our produce may be used for the devastated areas. In industry we,.again have a problem. We have built up new industries, whereas formerly we only supplied part of the market. Now we are exporting boots, clothing, oatmeal, all sorts of things. The military market will disappear and the problem will arise as to who is to have the domestic market, manufacturers or importers. And what about the workers engaged in supplying military needs? On the

other hand, there are projects of national development which may ensure employment or some kind of work for all. But this does not ensure the disposal of our produce nor does it tackle the many social and psychological problems that must arise. "One thing I do hope for," said Dr. Sutch, in conclusion, "and that is for the rapid elimination of all those controls of ffeedom of expression which have been made temporarily necessary by the war. New Zealand is one of the most conservative countries in the world, so we need not expect any changes of a radical nature here. No, I don’t think that even in our financial system or its organisation there will be any revolutionary change." EDUCATIONIST "\/HAT sort of a post-war world will it be? We can only guess and inside a paragraph there is room for only one guess," said F. L.. Combs, Editor-in-chief of Educational Publications. "My guess is this, the world will either come under the control of a money power, a great international money trust which will direct a system of world monopolies such as steel, sugar, textiles, shipping (etc.), or democracy, in order to base its freedom securely, will take collective possession of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. The struggle between these two tendencies is going on pretty vigorously in western democracies at the present moment. Of course there may be a compromise between these two opposites, but it will be an uneasy because an unstable one. And because it is unstable, such a compromise will be ripe with possibilities of further armed strife, for war in the last analysis is mainly economic competition transformed into a military struggle for supremacy. "It therefore seems to me that all who espouse democracy should work to see that it is economically free as well as politically free. It is a poor consolation to think that without economic democracy all the well-to-do as well as those on the bread line, go fettered in spirit from the cradle to the grave." PUBLIC SERVANT "{T is no good making wild speculations as to what things may be like," said a senior civil servant. "We must

decide how things should be and plan on that. The difficulty is to get a realisation of the need for planning. This is a world problem, not merely one for New Zealand. It is useless to think of the problem as one of markets after the war. The world is changing whether we like it or not, and we must have changes in our economic and financial system in order to adjust ourselves with the rest of the world. Individualism worked well enough in an age of increasing wealth but after the war the world will be poorer and won’t be able to afford individualism. Unless we want to see the world break up again into warring units we have got to be prepared to take our place and adjust our institutions and actions and attitudes accordingly. Weak and imperfect as state control of industry may be, at least it has a rational basis and is directed towards an end which is not selfish." THE CHURCHES " 1 SEE two contradictory trends," said His Grace Archbishop O’Shea, "People are dying in thousands to preserve their liberties from enemies outside their countries. At the same time, other people are ready, in return for economic security, to surrender those same liberties inside their own countries. That is the easy way-but only for a while. They can have complete economic security and still remain free men only if they are prepared to pay the price, namely, strict justice and unselfish co-operation among all the individuals and groups that go to make a nation. "The world will be assured of a peaceful and prosperous future when peoples and their governments remember and apply the words of Christ: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.’" ‘- | HAVE not the least idea what the world will be like in detail after the war," said the Rev. F. H. Robertson, Director of the Campaign for Christian Order, conducted by the New Zealand National Council of Churches, "That depends on how long the war lasts, how it is won, and to what extent by that time the nations have exhausted their energies and their resources. We shall have to tackle recagnstruction, just as it will be necessary to tackle the re(Continued on next page)

What People Are Thinking = When They Do Think

(Continued from previous page) building of the bombed cities. Before we make detailed plans we shall need to see what they look like when the bombs stop falling. But we can agree now to try to abolish slums and congested areas, and be agreed that the rebuilding shall be done according to some settled plan. Now by what principles shall we work as we face not only our ruined cities but ruined nations? The Church takes its stand upon Christian principles and calls upon all Christian people to act on them. But lip service to principles or charters is no guarantee that they will be put into practice. The ultimate issue is a moral and spiritual one. It means that people must be so changed that they ask not ‘What do I get?’ but ‘ How can I serve?’ That does not mean that the Church is concerned purely with the salvation of individual souls. A change in individuals does not necessarily guarantee the removal of evil conditions in the social order. Christians must strive to see that Christian principles are made effective in public as well as private affairs. My chief hope ‘for the immediate future is that in many countries there are signs that a large number of Christians are striving to do this." LABOUR LEADER "WES, there can be a brave new world after the war, but it depends upon the people themselves," said M. Moohan, National Secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party. "The people must know what they want, and go all out to get it. It was because the people of Germany and the people of Italy didn’t know what they wanted after the war that they drifted into the arms of Hitler and Mussolini. The people of New Zealand must ensure for themselves after the war: 1. Homes for the people to live in. 2. Economic security: income for 52 weeks of the year. 3. A voice in the management of industry. There need be no revolution. All these changes can be brought about within the present political structure. Democracy can be made as efficient in production as any totalitarian state." BIG BUSINESS H. NIMMO, a prominent Welling- * ton business man and a former president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, observed that anyone who refused to see the writing on the wall was either living in a fool’s paradise or was deliberately closing his eyes to the obvious changes which were already taking place in the world. " Just prior to the war," he said, "I made a world tour, visiting’ the United States and various countries on the Continent, including Germany. Even then it was plain to me that the stage was set for change. As I see it, it will involve, in particular, completely different relations between industry and commerce on the one hand, and ‘ybour on the other. The industrialist, .nd the employer in general, will have to realise more than ever his responsibility to labour.

"No, I am not one of those business men who hold up their hands in horror at the world Socialism, for Socialism is on the way. I do not mean National Socialism. I for one would resist stsenuously any attempt to socialise my business that way. And whatever happens, there must be adequate provision for the development of individuality and enterprise. I’m inclined to think that Britain, after the war, will adopt neither fascism nor extreme communism nor any other violent ‘ism,’ but an order based on sweet reasonableness. As I said, I think that order will be in some respects what we used to know as Socialism." SMALL SHOPKEEPER " | READ in some of these newspapers I stock all about what’s going to happen after the war and how we're all going to live happily ever after. I’ll certainly be a better world for tus mothers when our boys come home, but apart from that I don’t think there’ll be much change. Collectivisation? You mean I'll run my dairy under Government control? No, thank you! I’ve worked up my own little business and I’d like to keep right on owning it. But one good thing -after the war I hope I won’t have to keep rushing out to tell people I haven’t got any eggs." TOBACCONIST AND STATIONER ‘THE English are a nation of shopkeepers, and a tradition built up over the centuries will not disappear in a night. No, thank God! We have seen already what State Marketing means, and householders will not wish to see an extension of the system. They will want eggs again, and honey, and cheap vegetables, and fruit, and they will turn back to private enterprise for the supplies they* used to get. No, I don’t see New Zealand going any further into State control, though there are of course many people trying to push it that way." FILM WORKER " YES, there has been a change in the temper of the people all right, but not in the temper of those who govern them." "Do you really believe that?" we asked, "Surely in a democracy the Government reflects public opinion?" "Not necessarily: it often takes a long time to catch up. And I think this is one of those occasions in history when the Government is almost centuries behind the thought of the people. That’s shown, surely, by the fact that the authorities are still conducting the war on the basis of the status quo." "And after the war? We're certainly looking forward to a brave new world even more now than they were in 1919 -and yet look how disappointed they were then." SCHOOL TEACHER | = | AM sick of the sound of the jargon spoken in the name of Education," said an ex-President of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Nevertheless, I confidently forecast that if things take an upward turn after the war, the port(More opinions will be found on next page).

THE WORLD AFTER THE WAR

(Continued from previous page) "folio of Education will become the one of greatest importance, and that the Finance Minister will be its humble if also its vigilant servant. This will be because Education will be regarded ‘not only as the greatest single agency of change but as a means of transforming both people and the society they compose. The education of the young will be the most important part of the school’s task, but the education of adults, | which will go on from 20 to 70, will receive even more time,, means and attention. In the case of the young there will be less learning and far more activity. In the case of the grown-ups there will be (or should be) sufficient leisure to master the ideas that enable one to change with a changing world." MAN IN UNIFORM = BLUEPRINTS for a new world order?" asked the young New Zealander in uniform. " My own opinion is that a lot of it is so much wool being pulled over our eyes. Maybe I’m too particular about motives. But that

doesn’t alter the fact that I believe there will be a new world order after the war, and that it’s on its way even now. Security is what I will demand, and there are millions like me. That is why I believe that whatever political system we have, the profit motive must give way to the security motive. I don’t give two hoots what the system is after the war as long as it isn’t totalitarian. We don’t want totalitarian security. Personally I’m inclined to think that the framework of the present system will ‘serve fairly well as a basis to build on. I'm optimistic enough to believe that this time we really will learn some lessons." GIRL IN UNIFORM s E’RE not fighting for a new way of life, we're fighting for selfpreservation," said a W.W.S.A. girl. "I think it’s rather silly of people to suppose that everything’s going to be so much brighter and better after the war. Things certainly weren’t brighter and better after the last war. After this war (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) it won’t be a matter of folding our hands and waiting for all the beautiful things to happen. We'll have to start working to keep things from sliding back" HOUSEWIFE " (etre a lot of people tell me that after the war everything’s going to be different, there’s going to be a redistribution of wealth, and everyone will have enough money to live comfortably. Well, I don’t suppose that will make much difference to me, because if everyone’s got a good job there isn’t likely to be an increase in the number of domestic helpers, and I suppose I'll have to go on in much the same way as I do now. "No, I don’t hold with these creches and day nurseries, though they’re necessary at the moment with so many mothers working. But after the war there won’t be any excuse for a mother neglecting her children for the sake of a ‘job.’ Looking after her home and children is the most important job a woman can do, even after the war." STUDENT, aged 24 « | FORESEE the continuance of the independent State and the emergence of another era of power politics, with U.S.A. and Russia as central figures. Economic and cultural considerations will align Great Britain with U.S.A... ." STUDENT, aged 21 * AFTER the war there'll be a revolution, just as there was in Russia in 1917. I hope it will be a bloodless revolution, but after all you can’t have an omelette without breaking eggs."