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Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 162, 12 July 1939, Page 13

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DICTATOR METHODS. HOW EMPIRES CRUMBLED. FASCISM AND COMMUNISM. That the totalitarian States to-day were following the trend of those in ancient times was the conclusion reached by Mr. E. M. Blaikloek, in a University extension lecture last evening. Professor j C. R. Knight presided. "The totalitarian State naturally drifts in the direction of regulating all life and activity under its control," he said. "All private activity is ultimately extinguished. Secret police increase in numbers. The State Incomes a structure based on fear, a cobweb of suspicion. It exacts crushing taxes for crushing armaments for a crushing bureaucracy. This, before it fell in ruins, was the final condition of the most Fascist of all the ancient systems of government, that of Hadrian." In the Fascist State of Augustus, which gave Rome world power, peace and prosperity for the greater part of two centuries, there was also a gradual trend towards undisguised despotism and a stilling of all democratic liberty, added Mr. Blaikloek. Its end was the final exhaustion and ruin of the great Roman empire.

A basic difference between ancient and modern political systems, lie stated, was the contrast between the position of the working classes. In ancient times thev were flaves. To-dav in all democracies tliev were a tremendous political force. Communism was described bv Mr. Blaikloek as a system which had its origin largely in a desire for a re-dis-tribntion of wealth and for an improvement in working conditions among the lower classes. Under this system, as outlined by Plato, no one possessing any property should be entitled to a voice in government, and government should take no part in business. Those who governed should be the lovers of wisdom, arid under them should be men who loved honour and power, who would supply the executive force and control the military resources. A division resembling this appeared to exist in Russia, where the supreme power was not in the hands of the military leaders but of doctrinaires of the Communist party. Plata' 3 philosophic communism was ready to entertain the idea of dictatorship powers exercised by an individual, and for a transitional period, but the real problem, then as now, was to avoid extremes and tyrannical methods.