MORALLY WRONG IS POLITICALLY WRONG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 216, 13 August 1943, Page 10

MORALLY WRONG IS POLITICALLY WRONG

Pen Portrait of Sir Richard Acland IGHTY-EIGHT years ago, the sixth son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, tenth baronet, landed in Lyttelton, bought a block of sheep country in South Canterbury, and married the eldest daughter of Bishop Harper. His grandson is now the Nationalist, that is, the Conservative, Member of Parliatment for the area in which he and his relatives still run their sheep, Eight years ago, the eldest son of Sir Francis Dyke Acland, fourteenth baronet, sntered the House of Commons as Liberal Member for the Barnstaple Diocesan of Devon, but found Liberalism unsatisfying when the war came, To-day, he is the founder and leader of Common Wealth, a new Socialist party in Britain, and has (it has been recently reported), handed over all his personal property to a national trust. Here is 2a pen picture of him from a recent issue of the London "Observer."

looking for his 36 years, with an irresistible suggestion of a_ sixth-form boy-the kind of prefect who is not very good at games, but makes up for it by force of character-Sir Richard Acland gives above all else an impression of earnestness. Even his enemies do not accuse him of insincerity., But it is not a solemn kind of earnestness either; merely the eager, buttonholing enthusiasm of a man who not only knows that he possesses the truth, but, what is more, knows that the truth is very simple and can be printed on a four-page leaflet. If you ask Sir Richard Acland what is the central doctrine of Common Wealth, his small but growing political party, he will answer you more or less like this: Capitalism must be scrapped forthwith, but Britain must "go Socialist" under her own steam and in the way that accords with her past traditions, Nationalisation of industry-yes; class warfare -no; patriotism-yes; collaboration with Russia-yes; imitation of Russian methods-no. Simple, and even obvious, as such a programme may sound, it is original enough to have earned the hostility of the older Left-wing parties. And the byelection figures suggest that they have good reason to fear this youthful rival. die , 4 | EAN, spectacled and young-

UCH depends on phraseology, as Acland is well aware. Common Wealth dislikes labelling itself ‘"Socialist," avoids the Marxist jargon, and tries, not altogether successfully, to speak the language of the people. Acland himself has the advantage of having reached his collectivist opinions by an unusual route. His father, Sir Francis Dyke Acland, landowner and fourteenth baronet, was a notable West countryman and Liberal politician--Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1911-15), Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Feb.June, 1915), and Secretary to the Board of Agriculture (1915-16). In 1916, he resigned with Asquith, and did not hold office again. At his death in 1939, he was M.P. for North Cornwall, which he had represented for seven years after a long period out of Parliament. Sir Francis Acland’s great subject was agriculture; he had also an expert

knowledge of forestry. His first wife, who died in 1933, was a former President of the Women’s National Liberal Federation, and the author of a moving book, Good-bye tor the Present, which in part, told the story of her ten-year-old daughter, who was killed in an accident. Richard Acland, holder of a safe seat at Barnstaple, for which he was elected as a Liberal, has never experienced the ordinary discipline of a Left-Wing Party. He likes to explain-eagerly, and even with a tendency to bang on the tablethat the existing left-wing parties have ruined themselves by ignoring three obvious facts. The first is that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is out of date. The proletariat by itself is no longer strong enough to dominate society and can only win with the help of the middle-classes. Secondly, any political party which insults patriotism is doomed, at any rate in England. Thirdly, and (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) above all, the real driving force behind the Socialist movement is and must be ethical and not economic. Hence the Common Wealth slogan, "What is morally wrong cannot be politically right"--a clumsy slogan, but one with some appeal. Grafted on to this is a rather indeterminate immediate policy, which at times seems to promise everything to everybody. Common Wealth proposes: to nationalise all the means of production, but it is also ready to pay, compensationfull compensation to small propertyowners, fractional compensation to big ones. It will stop exploiting the Empire, but will preserve the English standard of living. It will deal firmly with its opponents, but will permit freedom of speech. It will be anti-military, but will encourage patriotism. It will co-operate with anyone whose aims are reasonably similar. In all this, no doubt, there is an element of Utopianism. But this much can be said: if common ownership is ever established in Britain, it will be by a party of approximately the kind that Acland is striving for, and not of the continental Marxist type.

HETHER Sir Richard Acland will be the ultimate leader of that party is a different question. He himself says that he does not want to; he merely wants to bring a larger movement into being. His opponents, on the other hand, accuse him of a "fuehrer complex" ‘and declare that if Common Wealth seemed likely to be swamped by a really nationwide movement, Acland would walk out of it sooner than play second fiddle. This judgment is probably coloured by jealousy. It is, in fact, not easy to imagine Acland as a political figure of the very, first rank, either for good or evil. He has the single-mindedness of a dictator, but not the vulgarity, perhaps not even the toughness. More plausibly, his opponents say that Common Wealth is merely a product of the electoral truce and will wither away as soon as the Labour Party is free to campaign again. * * %* EANWHILE, Common Wealth fights by-elections all over Great Britain and wins a surprising number of votes. It may finally break, as all radical movements hitherto have broken, on the rock of the trade unions. Acland claims, and can produce figures to support him, that he has a strong following in the armed forces and is gaining ground in the factories in spite of Communist opposition. — --