ONE WORLD OR NONE?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 383, 25 October 1946, Page 8

ONE WORLD OR NONE?

Fuli Text of Corwin’s First New Zealand Broadcast

AM in New Zealand on the last leg of a world flight which is already longer in miles than the circumference of the earth. I have come to this country by way of Newfoundland, and the British Isles, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Egypt, Persia, India, China, Japan, the Philippines and Australia. The faces I have seen in these places and the words I have heard, the flashing impressions and the long thoughts, these I could only suggest to you in the next few minutes- suggest them as a man tracing a small-scale map might point to a range of mountains in brown, or to oceans in blue. I have talked to partisans and prime ministers, with black marketeers and red soldiers; I have spoken with spokesmen who spoke for their parties, and spoken with parties who spoke for themselves; I have seen peaceful demonstrations and bloody riots; dined with Fascists, and Communists, and Social Democrats; been blessed by the Pope in the Vatican and toasted by a Burgomeister in Copenhagen, and insulted by a sergeant in Manila; I have picked my way among the corpses of murdered Hindus and Moslems in the streets of Calcutta: I have met miners in their mines, and farmers in their farms; and a Supreme Commander at his Headquarters in Tokio. I have been to No. 10 Downing Street; and talked to the premiers and prime ministers and foreign ministers of a dozen countries. I have talked to bearers and housewives, and a prince, and a number of coolies. Elated and Dismayed And by all that has happened, and the places I have been, by the faces I have seen, and the words I have heard, I have been alternately encouraged and disheartened, elated and dismayed, cast up and then cast down, I have come to realise that the way to "one world" is not as easy as the way around it; for the rubble of war lies many times across the going, and blood is still wet on the pavements. There’ have been many twists, and turns, and side excursions in my trip. Perhaps my thinking has taken on somewhat the shape of my travelling; in any case, what I have to say to-night may resemble the contour of my travels, in that I will zig-zag, twist, turn and make side excursions on the subject of one world. But let me start at the beginning. A few months ago, in New York, some people gathered to honour the memory of Wendell Willkie, an’ American whose greatness lay in his concept of a single world. Mr. Willkie was a leader of the Republican Party, the _ party opposed to Mr. Roosevelt’s party, but the character of that particular meeting, like Mr. Willkie’s concept of

the -world, was entirely non-partisan. The main business of that evening was the establishment, by award, of a memorial to Mr. Willkie, in the form of an annual flight around the world, patterned after his famous trip of 1942, It. was my good fortune to receive that award: The donors, largely liberal members of Mr. Willkie’s party, knew very well that I had campaigned in op‘position to them. They knew that I had supported Mr. Roosevelt. But Willkie’s followers had long before emerged from the narrow counsels of partisanship, having realised that peace, like freedom, is above any single party, State, or religion, and is or should be the creation and concern of all. Now, from what little I know of New Zealanders, I’m sure that most of you, likewise regardless of party, are agreed on the desirability of one world. The question is how to achieve that’ desire. For between the conception and the realisation lies a vast no man’s, land of conflicting information, propaganda, philosophy, economy, and general hash. "Hasty Mourners" The hasty mourners and viewers-with-alarm cry that we shall never make it in time. Some of my best friends are hasty mourners, and on various occasions. I have. heard them make arbitrary statements as to the length of time before life on the planet shall expire in a series of uranium blasts. These predictions range from 10 years, given us by a magazine editor, through five years left ‘us by a book critic, down to two years, which is all that was being allowed by a famous radio commentator in the week I. left America. The public resignation of these men is of course solemn and moving, but it is worth noticing that one of them recently bought a new house, another is expecting to become a father in December, and a third has put some hard-earned money in goverpment bonds which take 12 years to mature. Quest for a Plan I happen to believe there is nothing to be gained by despair and everything to be gained by getting out and working for the better world we talk so much about. I would have more respect for the alarmists if, after blowing the siren so shrilly, they would only suggest some kind of procedure, They all warn that we must learn the lessons of 1,000 years in the next five, but they don’t say what lessons, and they offer no particular course of study. Nobody, least of all I, wants to minimise the trouble we've seen, and the spot we’re in, and nobody regards the atom bomb as a rather large fire-cracker-but the fact is that we are not auditioning for an epitaph just now. We’re looking for a plan. Let me return to my starting point. Obviously the question to-day is how to achieve the One World of Wendell Willkie’s and our desire. Not| the Why, but the How. The method, the EGP the technique,

Now we have seen, in the recurring patterns of history, that tyranny has never wanted for techniques. The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt had the know-how. They knew how to keep a whole people in slavery and ignorance. It took a combination of God and Moses, seven plagues, and the drying of the Red Sea to beat that technique. Always, the virulence and staying power of tyrannies have been in direct proportion to the effectiveness of their techniques. Certainly Philip of Macedonia had more than a strong personality. He had the phalanx. Caesar had more than a Roman nose. He had strategy, both in the field of politics and of battle. It took wholesale treachery to beat him. Hitler had enough techniques to conquer the world. If he had stuck more to his techniques and less to his intuition, we might to-day be all dead or conquered. Well then, if tyranny has employed superb techniques, why then haven't democracy, peace, unity and freedom? Why doesn’t such a universally attractive idea as One World enjoy superb technicians? The answer is that it has done, and that in growing measure it will continue to do. But in the past the technicians of social good have been too few, the support of them too shallow, their lives, alas, too brief, their effect too sporadic. There have been many exponents of One World. Among statesmen, there were such as Benjamin Franklin, whose internationalism was as clear and deeply felt as any since his time; there have been leaders of widely varying political and philosophical complexion, from Confucius to Lincoln and beyond. Wendell Willkie’s concept, being up to

date as of 1942, and being based upon a modern world in the throes of a modern. war, turned out to be the most graphic, compelling and penetrating concept of One World yet advanced. Charter for the World Now let’s examine the phenomenon of the grip which Mr. Willkie’s phrase took on the United States-a _ grip which not even the expected post-war resurgence of professional isolationism, not even the hysterical anti-Russian crusade has been able to shake. Why, let’s ask, have the words One World become so soon a part of our language, why have these words helped transform the attitude of an American. people traditionally disinterested in foreign affairs? In the first place the phrase makes no local stops. It describes a credo not intended for a group of powers, but for all the world. It goes beyond an Atlantic Charter, a Pacific Charter, an Asiatic Charter, It makes universal common sense; it makes the same intelligent and appealing sound as a phrase.like Bread and Peace. But it means more. For without One World, there can never be enough bread or any lasting peace, I have said that what we sorely’ need in the massive task of securing the’ freedoms is a technique .... the technique of translating the logic and truth of One World to all peoples. There are various approaches. The most obvious ones are the constructive use of radio, press and film. Another is the exchange of cultures. A third is the exchange of students. A fourth is a peace prize, like the Nobel Award. A fifth is the kind of mission which brings me before you tonight. But of these many approaches,

the one which interests me mostly, as a technician and craftsman, is the one involving cultural interchange. Culture and Freedom Culture is very often a barometer of the state of a nation, because it flourishes only in proportion to the freedom of the society it represents. It was no accident that ancient Greece, which produced in a few decades some of the greatest sculptors, architects, philosophers, poets and dramatists the world has ever known, went sterile immediately after it was conquered by the fascist prototype, Philip of Macedonia. The magnificent Germany of Beethoven and Schubert, of Goethe and Schiller, went dry as the Sahara under Hitler. And can you recall any great Italian or Japanese artist or writer emerging under the ‘regime of the Axis? New Zealand is a free country. It is one of the freest in the world, and I hope you realise that as fully as I do after having come through nearly a score of other countries. I hope you know how lucky you are to be living in a land not ridden by disease and poverty, not chained to a degenerate ignorance, not crushed between the millstones of civil war. You have a system of social security which many a bigger and richer nation might well envy and emulate; your health programme is superior, and don’t let anybody tell you differently; you will travel many a thousand miles before you find the equal of it. Your recognition of the equality of races is without doubt the finest model on the face of the earth. This country, which is so green and fertile for all growing things, so fertile for social advancement, is also fertile for cultural growth beyond anything you have yet realised or imagined. I think it is a grave mistake for any New Zealander to feel that simply because this country is small, both in area and in population, you cannot contribute uniquely to the spiritual and aesthetic wealth of the world. Ancient Greece, too, was a small country, but it had Plato and Socrates, and Homer, and Euripides and how many others. Norway was small, but it produced Ibsen and Grieg; Finland is small, but it has Sibelius. The development of great artists depends first, upon freedom to practise an art, second, upon opportunity to-do so; third upon incentive. Cultural Exchanges You already have the freedom, which is the hardest condition to come by, and the most precious. I hope that soon you will give your people, your students, artists, writers, musicians, the apportunity and the incentive to establish the kind of cultural ambassadorship for New Zealand that Shakespeare and Keats and a hundred others achieved for England; that Smetana and Dvorak achieved for little Bohemia, that Lord Rutherford achieved for you in science. Why should great poems and paintings and symphonies have to be imported to this magnificent Dominion? ‘ I know you are young, and that you major concentration has been upon social development, in which you have succeeded admirably. But along with the new dams you are building at Karapiro, and the new houses which are going up, and the new Symphony Orchestra which you are establishing, how about a new arrangement for exchanging students with America and England

and Russia and China? How about some of you New Zealanders sending one of yourselves around the world, just as a group of Americans have sent me? I don’t think there can ever be too many exponents of One World buzzing around said world. In fact, I hope they get to be as thick as flies around a toffee apple. The point I started to make before getting side-tracked between Auckland and Invercargill is that a society must be essentially free in order to produce a culture worth exchanging with any other. Now one of the principal areas of such freedom is that of speech. And in this area I should like to dwell for a moment. A Qualified Freedom The wide havens of freedom of speech sometimes shelter the most desperate enemies of those freedoms. The exact point at which liberty evaporates into licence is debatable, but there have been -some classic definitions. One of them-by the American Justice Holmes -is that freedom of speech doesn’t give one the right to cry "Fire," in a crowded theatre. Off-hand, it seems to me that freedom of expression should be guaranteed any subject on earth within the realms of controversy. However, there are certain philosophies and practices well beyond the realm of controversy. Murder is one. Rape and robbery ure others. So is Fascism. We went to war to prove that Fascism was incontrovertably wrong-that there can be no room anywhere for the other side of that question. The arguing has been done, and the decision is in. And accordingly, I believe we have a right to challenge freedom of the press and radio, as it applies to all persons of unmistakably Fascist orientation, however colourful and sporting their phrases may be. On the other hand I do not think there can ever be too much energy put behind the reverse-behind the propagation of faith in Democracy. I would like to see programmes of truly democratic import, and books like Willkie’s "One World" pushed as hard in advertising campaigns as a title like, say, "Forever Amber." I have nothing against Kathleen Winsor -but sex has . been around for a long time, and is in no immediate danger of relapse — whereas Democracy has been plodding uphill all the hundred and sixty years of its existence as a modern form of government. I would like to see as much resourcefulness and brain-power going into the sale of democracy by educational and even advertising: methods, as- goes into the prométion of a campaign for "Wheaties." Democracy gives you strength, too. And four out of every five love it. The propagation of democracy is especially important in view of the fact that we live in a dangerous time-a time when the ideal of Mr. Willkie’s world is being put to its first great test. Age of Clear Issues Whatever else may be said of the time, it is certainly the age of simplification. Issues are clearer than they have ever been. A man is either for peace and progress, which can be achieved only by democratic processes, or he is for reaction, which can only be achieved by suppression and the techniques of tyranny, and which must lead inevitably to war. There are gradations, mutations, and exceptions, but you can (continued on next page)

ONE WORLD OR NONEP

(continued from previous page) very often tell which side of the fence a man is on, by certain key attitudes. If he’s an active anti-Semite, for example, the chances are that he is also against three or four other religions, races and nationalities. In America he is usually anti-Negro, anti-Oriental, antiMexican. There is also the kind who speaks of "good" Catholics, "white" Negroes, "decent" Jews, "respectable" Protestants, and "acceptable" trade unions. This qualified attitude can be as dangerous as that of the confirmed bigot, for though it may seém harmless to begin with, it has a way of developing, under the forced draft of events, into violence-or at least into the lunacy of the lunatic fringe. It is no coincidence that those who encourage a despondent suspicion against our Allies, and who urge us to get tough and throw our weight around while we still (supposedly) have the atom bomb to ourselves, are the same people who appeased Hitler, admired Mussolini for making the trains run on time, were against aid to Britain, against the draft, against lend-lease, and were for a negotiated, and later, a soft peace with Germany. There are those who want to change nothing about anything; not even if the status quo means unfair employment practices, soil erosion, insufficient power, inflation, millions of jobless, and the ‘traditional cycle of intermittent wars. They are one side. The so-called progressive is on the other. The Civic Drones But there is a third category. I don’t mean the fence sitter who ‘leans one way and then the other under the impression he is on both sides, when actually he is on neither. At least the fence-sitter knows there is such a thing as a fence. The man I mean just floats in air, like a prop in an Indian rope trick. He tells you he is not interested in politics; that he just wants to go along peacefully minding his own or his company’s business, or his art, and not go mixing in politics. What a sad delusion! I'll tell you what "politics" is. It’s your bank account and the assets of your corporation, and the freedom of your art; it’s the roof over your head, and whether it needs repairs from bomb damage; it’s the condition of the roads you ride on, and the quality of the teachers in your schools; the clothes you wear, and whether they are available and reasonably priced. Like it or not, you are the creature of politics and of society: certificates are issued for your birth, vaccination, education, marriage and death. Politics is intimate, not a pageant in a remote marble capitol: it has to do with the lives and safety of your family and yourself; with whether you can afford to marry; or if you’re married, whether you can afford children. Politics is the instrument which determines not only whether the cows which furnish -your milk are free of tuberculosis, and if there shall be benches in the park, but whether your son will have to die on a battlefield, or whether you ‘yourself will vaporise in a blast of improved nuclear fission. : |

The man who never takes sides, who never votes, never signs a_ petition, never speaks his mind, is a civic drone. Panics, depressions and wars come to him like weather. He suddenly peers out of his window and says, "Look, it’s warring." One World or Two A moment ago I spoke of the clarity of issues. The very day-to-day existence of entities as large as United States and United Nations make inevitable all kinds of issues. This is normal and as much to be expected as the problems arising in ordinary family life. But the final distillate of all issues comes to this: whether now that we've reached the Atomic Age we shall have one world | or two. In my travels since leaving New York 16 weeks ago, I have seen enough to realise that unity, like charity, begins at home. We cannot have a truly balanced world until we have a balanced America, Palestine, India, China, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Greece and points east and west. I don’t mean to suggest that the United Nations Organisation should suspend its efforts until the Hindus and Moslems stop murdering each other in Bombay. Certainly, if a patient is suffering from operable cancer, in a race against time you don’t delay the operation in order to finish work on a dental bridge which he may, at the same time, happen sorely to need. I have no wish to deny the painfully disagreeable aspects of the state of almost. every nation I have visited. On the other hand, I see no point in cateloguing them here. It would amount to a staggering index of dirty linen, too long to hang on the line of this broadcast. However, there is no law against drawing a number of conclusions from my experiences. And one of them is this: that in the conduct of international affairs, we should be careful not to stray too far from the sound Christian principle of inviting him who is without sin to cast the first stone. Certainly ‘the principle lies directly athwart the latest news for, in any discussion of the international situation to-day, Russia seems to be the pivotal point. The Soviet has returned to the familiar role of the heavy-the part she was represented as playing before she became our ally. I hear and read comments in the press of many nations to the effect that we are heading for a war with Russia. When I was in Russia two months ago, it seemed to me singular that nobody there was talking about heading towards a war with us democracies; that there were no Russian editorials and headlines saying a military showdown was inevitable. Wherever this war talk has come from, and however it has been inspired, the fact remains that it got so loose and irresponsible that it had to be pinned down by the very highest authorities. I note with satisfaction that within the last three weeks there have been statements by Mr. Eden, Premier Stalin, President Truman and Secretary Byrnes -all to the effect that there will be no war. Well, let’s take them, at their word, shall we, and stop talking ourselves into a first class atomic catas. trophe?

I personally think we should redefine our standards of diplomacy. I should like to see foreign policies dictated by plebiscite and referendum, so that the entire people of a nation, and not a mere cabal of cabinet members, or the hierarchy of a single all-powerful party, dictates what a nation’s policy shall be. I should like also to see our text-books and dictionaries cleaned up a bit. For example, one of the traditional definitions of diplomacy-it happens to bé that of the best .known American dictionary (Websters)-is "the artful man-

agement of securing advantages without arousing hostility." The dictionary offers this with a straight face, seemingly unaware that in modern history most diplomacy has consisted of the artful management of arousing hostility without securing advantages. Perhaps in a future edition Websters can be influenced to rewrite their definition to read: "The artful management of securing amity, which is the highest of mutual advantage." There’s a wonderful song about Abraham Lincoln called "The Lonesome Train," which contains the line, "You could never quite tell where the people left off and where Abe Lincoln began," It will be a happy day for all of us when we have the same difficulty telling where the people leave off and their diplomats begin.

For in questions of war, peace, and freedom the people are extremely uncomplicated. They want no petty connivances, no bi- tri- or quadrilateral alliances; they want frank and open discussions, a clear presentation of problems and a showing of cards face up. The test of what I am saying is whether you, as one of the people, wish to see the world in one camp, or in two or more; whether you prefer that all people capable of self-government should be politically -independent; whether you favour diplomatic and trade relations

with the very kind of fascists we have just beaten-I am referring to Spain-~ or whether we should pursue logically the principles for which we fought. Right now all nations without exception should be concerned with building a peace so sound that such old "B" picture impedimenta as spies are surplus property and can be dispensed with. And the way to start that building job is to see how close we can get to each other, not how far apart. | If you look out of the window to-night. you will see that it is not warring. The gloomy prophets and forecasters would have you believe that a big storm is blowing up. But it is largely. their: own huffing and puffing which makes the windows rattle. Actually the condition is closer to being one of mist in the valleys-a mist that will clear by noon, as good men count the time,