DEMOCRACY v DICTATORSHIP

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

DEMOCRACY v DICTATORSHIP

broad principle.'. We gay that democracy lias not yet readied it* peak, because under present conditions of living true democracy is impracticable. A modern Government consists of representatives of all clashes of people, duly elected by the peoj)le. Nevertheless, no matter how many reprosentati\es may sit in parliament.. a certain minority must always go unrepresented. I 'a rty politics have nullified tliis to a certain extent, and frei|uentl\ (lie unrepresented minority accepts tlie decision of the majority and remains loyal to the elected government. The British Parliament as introduced by Simon de Mont fort. —'"let tlu; community of the realm advise. and let it lie known what the generality, to whom their own law.s are best, known, think on the nmtter'%—was at first representative only of the moneyed classes. Very much later came the introduction of salary, so that poor men could sit in the House of Commons. X.iw we may say that of all systems that of Britain most closely clings to t lie spirit of democracy, and that is why British democracy is considered the most dangerous enemy to modern dictatorship. It presents a solidity of construct ion gained over a period of seven hundred J ears; more than that, it is the actual spirit of a nation, while dictatorship can never be more than the spirit of the dictator. No nation which depends upon the wortf of one man can ever hope for stability, and in dictator-ruled countries, though there is often an advisory body elected, there can be no doubt that the dictator is the man who pulls the stiings of his puppet parliament. He is always a brilliant man. often to the point of genius . . . and genius is too frerjueutlv near the borderline of insanity, if you observe, practically all dictators rise to power at the conjunction of certain circumstances. Napoleon made his meteoric ascent to mastery in hurope when France was torn asunder by internal revolution, when she was harried by foreign creditors and enemies, and financially was on the verge of bankruptcy. .Mussolini, Hitler, and the late Kemal 1 asha lose to power at the end of the World \\ ar when their countries were desperately close to dissolution. All these men have had the quality of brilliant leadership. They have had the power to capture the minds of a people faced with chaos, hunger and death, and the initiative to seize either by strategy or violence any opportunities which arose. The dictator is first an opportunist. He is also an egotist, and therein lies his weakness. for egotism, which persuades its victim that his judgment is infallible, forbids him to be anything but a sole ruler. Otherwise he would be content to consult other representatives of the |>eople whose destiny he directs. Thus the sane type of man, endowed with great i|ualities of leadership, becomes not a dictator but a premier, advised by a representative body well fitted to do so.

n. either through threat or action. Though tlic dictator has it in hia power to compel liy force the carrying -out of his policy, it does not follow that those he rules believe in their hearts that his is the path towards national peace and prosperity. Kenial Ataturk was an exception. It is the dictator whose mad urge for power drives him to over-reach, not only his limits, lmt also the limits and the strength of his country, who rides a dangerous steed and whose death can onlv bring about the dishonour and decline of a nation. In international politics it is always the democratic country which acts as a stabiliser. At the present moment of crisis it is Britain, where the spirit of democracy lias reached a higher peak than in any other eountrv, whose stabilising power will prove the turning point in European affairs." It is a noteworthy point that it is rarely the democratic nation that seeks to force its political views on other peoples. Certainly the British nation has extended its boundaries until it lias become an empire upor which the sun never sets; yet, but for a few early mistakes in administration. it has carried out its broad principle of democratic rule in its colonies as well as at home. Consequently it preserves a unique system of independent colonics which in crises such as these do not fail to "ive wholehearted support to the Mother Country. The drastic mistake" that was made 111 refusing the colony of America parliamentary representation is a telling instance of what might have happened if Britain in the Tears that followed nad not improved her democratic system out of all recognition as to what it was under George 111. Jhe democratic country seeks to improve itself internally, and surelv m these days of ceaseless adjustment there is enough scope for an able leader there. On the contrary, the dictator usually seeks bv brilliant coups of statesmanship or violent tactics to extend'liis country's power and thereby ins own. Peace and commercial friendship is the ooal of all right-thinking people, no matter what nationality they be, surely the opposite to what is so often the policy of an ambitious' dictator. There is no doubt that "the brotherhood of man" lies at the end of a different road from this. Democracy is the ideal of the brotherhood of man ... be its achieveeYfr , so distant .. . that gives us strength to fight for its fulfilment; it gives us. in a war-riven world, the courage to look beyond the daikness to the light that is ahead.