LIBERTY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21319, 12 November 1934, Page 9

LIBERTY

TO THB SniTOE Of TBI PttSSS. Sir,—l read with interest Mr L. C. Webb's "Contention" in "The Press" of Saturday, but apart from the literary side, I was surprised at the platitudes contained in it, especially in the very last part of the article. Now, in order to deal with the subject of liberty, one must first think of the why of our existence and the best answer I ever found is the one given by a well-known mystic, which reads something like this: "We are here because we have willed to live"; in fact,

• that "will to live" is so strong in us all : that it completely overcomes the dead- ; ening inertia of the matter of our physical bodies. We have willed to I live in order to experience, to learn, to untold all the latent powers in us, and to strive in an ever upward bc- \ coming. Everywhere in nature we see this same striving after fuller manifestation of life. The seed buried in the ground pushes its growing points upwards to the light, towards freedom. The chick within the egg splits lis confining shell in twain. Everywhere life seeks expression; powers press to exercise themselves. That is why we are born with free wills, and thus develop the powers of discrimination m the best school of all—that of trial and error, in which liberty is essential. Lasky speaks of liberty a3 lack of restraints, but that is only a claptrap definition in order to whitewash the Soviet's criminality! Nature has already surrounded us with all the restraints necessary. That is why we are free! We could not fly but for the law of gravity; without it we could not rise; and all the spiritual restraints are expressed in losses, sufferings, fears, and painful experiences. These teach us and prevent us from declining. Mr Webb speaks of wise and honest rulers. I am afraid he will have to manufacture them through the only school, that of struggle, certainly not through toadyism, flattery, and sickly praises. (•' Jesus knew better than to seek to rule; He taught men how to rule themselves. Mr Webb speaks of applying wisdom to power; but this is impossible. Objective power implies subjective weakness from which to draw its existence. It lives on repression and suppression. If we were to be led nature would have supplied us with a chain round our necks. The only real power is the inner power, which frees one from all objective shackles, supports, and props. Man has created a political state in order to free himself and do collectively what is impossible for him to do individually, but man must rule the state, otherwise he only creates tyrants and the best example of these we have in Russia. Germany, and Italy. States and constitutions are ephemeral; man only is eternal. The ephemeral must not rule the eternal. Lack of liberty breeds tyrants and slaves and a slave makes the worst tyrant of all. We have examples in Stalin, Lenin, Mussolini, etc., etc.; they were all born in slave states; they are aH cruel sentimentalists with a lying propensity in order to justify their vile tyrannies. They are all slaves of their ungovernable passions and vanity. Poor Mr Webb has, or seems to have, a great deal of sympathy for our politicians ana even suggests nrore money for them; but what they need is more morality and unselfishness. None of them could get as good a living in the ordinary way. They even voted themselves 5 per cent, rise with arrears, if you please, while those on whose backs they climbed to power are starving. When I listen to their twaddle I feel that education should start from above instead of from below, as they are the most dangerous part of the community. The worst offenders are the Labour M.'s P. Once they were socialists; they had ideals and principles, but now they have developed into arrivists, striving after respectability and snobbery. They are bankrupt of spiritual aims and their only topic and programme is to poke fun at Messrs Coates and Forbes. They have a party machinery to which they are slaves and we are their victims. Not for long, I hope.—Yours, etc., MAZZINI. November 11, 1934.