The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1932. A CALL TO LIBERALISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 209, 3 September 1932, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1932. A CALL TO LIBERALISM.

For the cause that Itroks assistance. For the wrong thrtt needs resistance. For (he future itt i the distance, Ar.d the good that we can do.

. A correspondent in the Christehureh "Times" has raised a call to Liberalism, and he believes the time has come for an effort to make Liberalism an effective force in politics. Liberalism has been defined as "that principle of political rights according to which the public authority, in spite of being all-powerful, limits itself and attempts, even at its own expense, to leave room in the State over which it rules for those to live who neither think nor feel as it does. Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities, and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet." It is not a platform of a class. It seeks the good of all, and aims at raising the whole community to a higher level of comfort, culture and width of outlook.

In every country Liberalism has suffered an eclipse. Freedom, for which Liberalism stands, is threatened by the dictatorships of Bolshevism or Fascism. Germany is rent by the struggle between the Nazis and the Communists, and the old Liberals, who clingto the traditions of 1848, are now represented by the politically impotent German State Party. In Great Britain the Liberals have been rent by dissension in their ranks, but efforts are now being made to form a new National Liberal Party under the leadership of Sir John Simon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is to include all Liberals who support the MaeDonald Ministry, as well as a large number of former Labour supporters, who have seen the folly of the Socialist programme and have determined to return to the Liberal policy to which they were attached before the rise of the Labour Party. Liberalism stands for an attitude towards life rather than for political bargaining. It -has suffered because it has refused to seek the good of its own party, or any sectional interest, and has rather sought the good of all men. Those who call themselves Conservatives have not hesitated to support measures of extreme Socialism, if by so doing they can secure votes and retain power. They have advocated policies, 'of which they must privately disapprove, at the dictation of agents who have assured them that only so could they hope to retain office. Some of our own legislation in the direction of State control and interference has been placed on the Statute Book by legislators elected on a Tory vote. The genuine Liberal has much in common with both the Conservative and Labour Parties. With the Conservatives the Liberals believe in civilisation, and accept the present order as the result of many centuries of human progress. Both parties admit the need of preserving the civilisation which we have attained; both admit that it cannot stand absolutely still where it is. The difference lies in their method of approach. When some part of the present order is called in question, the Conservative tends to stand on the defensive and repel what he considers an attack on custom and tradition. The Liberal, valuing the social order just as highly, sees danger in refusing to see light or listen to reason, in contentedly doing injustice to the weak because they are weak. Liberalism has also much in common with the Labour Party. Both, desire to improve the condition of the poor, but the prescriptions sometimes differ. Many Labour adherents manifest an intense party spirit which makes them treat as enemies all who do'not utter their own catchwords. Labour stands for class legislation, and is apt to see things much too crudely. It tends to preach class war and to ascribe all bad things to the wicked capitalists. This stimulates anti-social passions. The Liberals do not aim at the victory of one class or another class, but at the victory of the Liberal spirit of trying to find what is true, irrespective of prejudice, and of trying to do what is best for the whole, irrespective of passion or class interest.

Liberalism thus stands for the middle of the road, avoiding the panic of reaction and the folly of destruction. There is need of this spirit to-day when the world is faced with so many serious problems. It would save us from wild economics or the contempt of all economics whatever; it would raise and stabilise our standards of public conduct; it would give us progress with security. Professor Gilbert Murray, in pleading some time ago for a revival of Liberalism, said that we wanted to recapture the old Greek idea of aristocracy as the rule of the good elements of life and a belief that we could make life a better thing. We want a spirit free from the blind fury of Tory prejudice and the rawness and crudeness of method of the demagogue. That spirit can best be found in the great ideals for which Liberalism has always stood. In foreign policy Liberalism has sought to promote the liberty and prosperity of other nations while not forgetting its duty to its own. It has been a warm advocate of a League of Nations policy abroad, the increase of arbitration, the reduction of armaments and the final banishment of war. It has stood for a higher level of national life, fcjr more opportunity and greater freedom. The Liberals have worked for the increase and improvement of education, for the raising of the average standard of morals and manners, and for the lessening of social evils. They have waged constant war against ignorance, cruelty and vice. The basic attitude of Liberalism is the resolve to get free from all the forces that! blind us, especially from prejudice and passion and self-interest, and so try to find out what is true, and then to do what is best. This is a hard task. Men will willingly listen to the extreme Tory or the class-war revolutionary.: They find it more difficult to listen to the voice of reason, wisdom and generosity. Yet this is the voice we need if civilisation is to be saved, \ and this is the voice of the true Liberalism-