Bay of Plenty Times. THURSDAY, JULY 28th, 1938 SLAVERY PAST AND FUTURE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12413, 28 July 1938, Page 2

Bay of Plenty Times. THURSDAY, JULY 28th, 1938 SLAVERY PAST AND FUTURE

In all ages man has exploited his fellows, and indeed it might be admitted that some at least of the developments of culture, labour and civilization in general could not have been achieved without the practice of slavery, though to be sure coercion might have been better directed. There have been malignant slaveries, and comparatively benevolent ones, which in a sense arc the most dangerous because of the insidious argument they furnish regarding the well being of communities who in freedom would starve and perish. The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post in its extracts of “150 A cars Ago’’ frequently published examples of such fallacies. On the whole the exploitation of man by man has degraded far more than it has uplifted, and has been hideously cruel into the bargain. Little as we may like the thought, this world—with the terrible labour camps of Russia, and the concentration and instructional camps on the German method—has facts which may lead us back to slave-owning, unless humanity exercises continual vigilance. That Fascism may have been necessary in certain countries .whose axis of life had become dangerous, as in Italy before the Apothesis of Benito Mussolini, is more than arguable, but since Fascism as yet, finds it difficult to stop its authoritarian course, it can be nothing but very temporary panacea for the evil's it has apparently cured. It has however shown in one thing that continual attempts to put folk into one mould can but bring us back to a “milieu” in which slavery flourished. That puts into words undefined fears that many of us perhaps have hardly analysed, eleven dimly formulated. But there it is. An appreciable part of the Earth’s population is under dictatorships, from Spain to somewhere in Central China and though we do not hold that dictatorship is slavery, nevertheless those considerable populations have lost the mental, even the physical, freedom which is the pride of democracies. That discipline, to give it a, moderate name, whether inevitable or not, in each of the varied circumstances which produce it, may not be slavery, but it is certainly not liberty, as understood by all those who pas-

siouately uphold the tradition of the Union Jack. AVe can well understand that conditions might arise in which slavery could reassert itself. It is a terrible thought, but one not to be shirked. For slavery to get any kind of foothold under the Union Jack, must come about through Socialism. Socialism cannot be implemented in any country without control and compulsion, and then dictatorship becomes inevitable. For Socialism cannot be applied in any degree without developing, and under Socialism there must be an army of inspectors and of spies, and these individuals, holding the favour of the authorities could be verv cruel in subtle ways.