THREE NEW ZEALANDERS LOOK AT THE WORLD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 427, 29 August 1947, Page 6

THREE NEW ZEALANDERS LOOK AT

THE WORLD

Written for "The Listener"

by

E.

and

O.

E.

HAD the interesting experience last week of talking on three successive days to three New Zealanders who had spent most of the post-war period overseas. Each was a graduate of our University, and each, without ceasing to be a New Zealander, had been working with nationals of other countries on nonnational problems. In addition, each was old enough to know that in international contacts words are one thing and ‘purposes often another thing. I was not therefore asked to believe that what I Reard was the full story. Emphasis was laid in each case on the impossibility of getting the full;story, partly because of language barriers, partly because of racial, or political,*or religious reticence and suspicion. . * ne * IRST I met Dr. W. B. Sutch, who was spending a few weeks in Wellington after a long period in’ Europe

and the Pacific, and who will soon be leaving New Zealand again. for the United States. Dr.

_ Sutch -is an economist-he acted in Europe as adviser to UNRRA-and if I had been an economist too our conversation might have been about dollars, and sterling, and Bretton Woods, and international ‘banks, and loans. But I don’t know enough about those things to ask intelligent questions about them, so I began by asking Dr. Sutch if there was going to be another war. His answer was that one man’s guess was as good as another’s-that no one

could say what ‘new lunacy the human animal might develop, but that he knew of no country whose people wanted to fight again, and of none whose government was getting ready to fight. Russia and the United States were certainly watching each other. Each was uneasy about the other, Russia about America’s atomic bombs, the United States about Russia’s silence, secrecy, and unshakable discipline. But he was not himself alarmed by that situation. The advantages of peace were so overwhelming on both sides that those who expected war were suffering from nerves. "But there is one thing I do fear," he said suddenly, "and that is the block in the circulation of news. What do you know about Germany to-day? — What non-Europeans want you to know. What do you know about Greece, or Yugoslavia, or Hungary?-So little that you would be better to know nothing at all. All you get is the froth on the surface‘incidents,’ arrests, diplomatic Notes, and

so on, while the real story is the advance of millions of people from serfdom to. self-re-

spect." "You see that as the over-all pieture?" "Quite clearly. Europe has passed through a peasant revolt, a social revolution if you like, and we who did the same thing a few centuries earlier could well be sympathetic. So we would be if we realised clearly what is happening. But. we don’t. We get stampeded by labels and slogans, confused by rumours, estranged by lies. The name heard most, and apparently feared most in New Zealand, is Communism. But if we are going to turn our backs on every

country that someone calls Communist we are going to turn away from many countries whose people are liberating themselves from = serfdom." "Would you call these movements democratic?" ,"Not the democracy we talk about here. But the people are -everywhere taking control of their own country and it doesn’t matter very much whether we call it Democracy or Communism. It is not the system of Britain and it is not the system of the US.S.R., but it is escape from feudalism." "Do you suggest that Britain and the United States are backing the wrong horses in those countries?" "That is politics, and I am an economist. In any case I am not sitting in the totalisator taking the bets. But it looks as though some in backing their fancy think it helps them to attack the other horse’s name or rider."

"You think names don’t matter much?" "I think facts mean more, The cens tral fact in Europe as I see it is that the people are on the march," * * * NEXT day I had a long talk with Dr. R. G. Hampton, who is back in New Zealand after a year in Poland. Dr. Hampton’s’ general impressions have already been broadcast. Poland, he felt after working there, is very much misunderstood in New Zealand. If it feels that it must keep step with Russia in foreign affairs it is running its own house at home in every room, and as far as Dr. Hampton could see, was not being asked to do otherwise, No realist, he said in his broadcast, would expect to see the Poles flout the wishes of the Russian Government in important matters directly affecting Russia. "Geographically and economically they’re far too closely bound to Russia. Russia supplies them with food, raw materials, and seeds which are essential to Poland’s continued existence. It would be as foolish for Poland to make an enemy of Russia as it would be for Belgium deliberately to antagonise France. But when this has been said it remains all the more creditable that the Polish Government largely conducts its own affairs without reference to Russian wishes. Social Welfare, Education, Industry, Agriculture, War, every Ministry has a Pole at its head and a purely Polish administrative staff. There’s no Russian in charge of a single Portfolio, a single Government department, or a single administrative body. The Central Planning Board which determines trading policy, industrial production, agricultural production, and every form of large-scale economic activity is entirely Polish in personnel. In fact, I travelled extensively up and down Poland and saw remarkably few Russians. I saw more R.A.F, men in Warsaw than I saw Russians." Nor, Dr. Hampton insisted, is Poland Communist on the. Russian model. "The peasant owns and farms his own land. Peasants settling in the ex-German territories in the west are helped by the

Government to buy their own land, pay® , ing from their production in future" years. There are in some areas large State farms, but this is the exception. As a general rule the peasant owns his land and sells his product in any market which pleases him. Certainly he may buy his seeds from a local co-operative self-help society, and borrow a tractor from a local communal tractor station, but this is Communist only in the sense of communal seif-help." The industrialist who operated in a large way, Dr. Hampton explained, has had his plant taken over by the State, but the smaller man is free to conduct his own affairs. "He may produce what he likes, sell where he likes, and spend where and what he likes. The shopkeeper may set up where he likes and sell what he likes. Obviously this is not Communism as we commonly think of 5 It astonished me to hear Dr, Hampton say that the peasants own their land, but he was emphatic that they do. "They may not have paid for their holdings, but they are in possession, and payment is being made out of each year’s production. Of course the holdings are very small-about 12 acres-and since the horse is still their chief source of power, it is a lean and hard life, But it is paradise for them to own and ‘not be owned, and they are free to add to their holdings if they can. Personally I wish they had tractors instead of horses. The horse in Poland is like the cow in India: it keeps everybody hungry and poor." It still seemed strange,to me that people who owned their land and were 99 per cent. Catholic would follow a policy acceptable to Russia. Dr. Hampton admitted that it was strange, but _ said that the fact was beyond question? "Then is religion free," I asked him; "or have the worshippers been driven underground?" "As far as I could judge it is quite free. Nearly everybody is a Catholic. Nearly everybody goes to church. Though most of the churches have been destroyed, services are held in crypts (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) and basements. I don’t remember meeting anybody who did not go .to church, or who told me that he didn’t." "What about political liberty then?" Are there Opposition parties?" "That is a difficult question to answer. All political questions about Poland are difficult to answer since we can never be sure that we have been told the full story. But there is certainly an Opposition in Poland, and in Warsaw at least an Opposition paper. I have seen the Opposition selling its paper to the members of a Government procession as they passed along the streets. In addition you see the Opposition paper in Government offices. Government officials buy it precisely as they buy Opposition papers here-buy it openly, read it openly, and leave it lying on their office tables. As I don’t read Polish I don’t know how far Opposition papers would go in criticism-I am sure there is a limit; but they print cartoons against the Government and in the music halls you hear jokes against the ruling powers precisely as you would in our own vaudeville." "You said in your broadcast that a Pole who has not worked against the Government would be quite free to return." "Yes. I saw hundreds returning, and as far as I could discover they were not victimised. They were certainly scrutinised closely and checked over dren they arrived. I think every man ‘ad his finger-prints taken, for example, gpd that he had to answer questions by the police. I have no doubt, too, that if he turned out to be a wanted man his position would be difficult. But if there was nothing against him he was given food and blankets and a free ticket to his home or’ village. I met boatloads of these people, and it is just onsense to say that they are arrested, bent to slave camps, or shot."