FREE ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 6

FREE ENGLAND.

PASSION FOR JUSTICE. RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUAL PRESERVATION IN WARTIME. (By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD.) (II) My great fear for England is lost the war weaken the passion for justice, lest the zeal for individual liberty, which has been England's greatest contribution to the progress of the race, he weakened and even destroyed by the war and the war spirit. For war means, a»s everyone here knows to-day, the extension of controls, the putting on of checks and reins, the infringement of liberty, which it is sought to justify on the ground that one must fight fire with fire, that to defeat a ruthless dictator one must be as ruthless as the dictator himself. Fortunately it is in the finest English tradition that criticism is still heard in the British Parliament. The very impatience with war restrictions, the widespread disapproval of phases of tlie evacuation and of the compulsory billeting, the vigorous opposition to Mr. Keynes' scheme for a forced levy on wages for saving, the great desire to keep Parliament in session—all these are signs of health; signs that the finest tiling in British life, its jealousy of it* rights and privileges, is still intact.

I have every ho}>e that this vigilant guarding of the rights of the Englishman will continue, for they are the rights of man. Never was there a period in the world's history when it was more necessary to 'stress those rights and to preserve them in the face of those who declare that the individual has no rights whatever that the State is hound to respect; that lie lives only to be ready to die in prison or concentration camp or on the battlefield, as the dictator may decide. Give up those rights, even "for the duration."' and more than half of England's case against Hitler falls to the ground. It is a. battle not merely for a new and federal world, but for the re-establishment of the equality of individuals without regard to race or creed or colour, without regard to whether they belong to minorities or majorities. Planning the Peace. It is a Mgn of wisdom and of health that in this emergency debate as to what shall be the ideals and aims beyond the actual winning of the war goes on apace. This is the time to plan ahead, not when the war passions liave' risen to great heights and the losses and sacrifices may have become immeasurable, as between 1914 and 1918. It is worthy of the best tradition of English, statesmanship to have an Opposition leader declare in the House of Commons, contrary to the precedent of the last war, that "first of all the peace settlement must be made by the co-operation of the victors, the vanquished and the neutrals alike."

It is leadership in the best English manner to have the Labour party say that it must not be a dictated peace or one between one or two Powers; that the conecpt of absolute "sovereignty should be abandoned and that there should be recognition of an international authority with the power to enforce its decisions.

Of course, there are clashes of opinion; of course, there are disagreements; of course, there will be views of every varying shade —but that, again, is the magnificent English tradition.

One has only to look across the Channel to Germany—where no man dare venture an opinion as to what the peace should be; where I heard no single man discuss the terms of a just settlement or what the Europe of the future should be —to understand the difference between slaves and free men, to knowwhy it is that two systems for the government of men are in death grapple to-day. London—the Heritage of All. <Jood-bye, London! I shall take back to America an unforgettable picture of black-outs and sandbags, of trenches scarring the beautiful parks, and of balloons on uuard, as exquisite when beneath blue skies as jewels in a rajah s raiment. The majesty of London at night in a darkness unparalleled since the days of Shakespeare will always live with me, for then tlio mystery of the greatest of capitals is at its height. Men and women may sit behind drawn curtains fearing perhaps to go about; the city broods over them in aweinspiring beauty. Look down upon it from a height and it is all the world — dotted by will-o'-the-wisp lights that betray a bus, a car. Destroy this city? Well may the Germans pause, for this that looms so som'bre and so vast is not England's alone. This is the heritage of all who say that men shall be free. For him who lays violent hands upon it there will be forgiveness never. Good-bye, London! I take back to America something finer still—the unforgettable picture of the men and women who bring this city's streets to life. By day and 'by night, 1 shall see the puzzled, adventurous faces of children 'being evacuated into —for them— the unknown, with their British mothers shedding but scant, decorous tears.

I shall behold, whenever I please, the faces of British youth in . uniform; handsome, clear-eyed, cheery—wholesome, wholesome, wholesome. Too fine to lose; too tine to die! I shall recall the women, young and old, in uniform; a handsome girl of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force; a constable as neat, as spick and span, as any guardsman before St. James' Palace; an ;»irwarden in brown, for all the world •> sergeant-major in skirts; a man in khaki kilt dancing with a girl in khaki trousers.

There will conte to me across the Atlantic the men drilling bare-kneed in barracks; long queues before the Naval Reserve boats in the Thames; troops marching across country; lorries full of men, tanks, guns, men—always fine, splendid men.

But, more than that, as long as I li\o there will -be with me the quiet faces of those without uniforms, without titles, the plain people wjto carry on, who have nothing—yet, if they have sons, everything-—to lose: who must pay and pay and pay. Fur these are England—t ho England that must be made fice of wars, free of fear, free of injustice. For them, after the war, must be. built the England that is 1»» colli!', hotter and liner than ever lwfore.

Good-'bye, England! I jjo unafraid. For justice, humanity and the ii,-hr are standing on your right hand. And to them victory will come iu time.