DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22250, 15 November 1937, Page 4

DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

SO 188 EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —Germany, Italy, and Japan are now united in their determination to make their power and influence felt in the world. In 1914-18, with Japan and Italy on their side, the democracies only escaped destruction by the narrowest of margins. "Nine-tenths of wisdom," as that old moose-hunter Theodore Roosevelt used to say, "consists of being wise in time." Not the least astonishing feature of the world before the catastrophe of 1914 was the blank indifference of the British people everywhere to the menace threjtening them. "Why were we not prepared?" asked Lord Haldane. "In the first place," he replied, "because our Government could not be persuaded of the imminence of the danger. But, above all, because democracies never prepare for war." Like Lord Haldane, <he only excuse that Mr Asa.uith could offer was that he did not take steps to arm Great Britain because the democracy refused to interest itself in defence. "What an admission and what a crime! What a perfidious claim to far-seeing and constructive statesmanship! Lord Wolseluy was nearer the truth when he declared: "The British people are never ready for war, because their Cabinets are afraid to tell them the truth." Fancy a so-called Government telling an old man like Lord Roberts to stump the country and educate 15,000,000 of ignorant voters as to the necessity of arming, when the shouts of the war bands of the Huns could already be heard! Surely the lesson of the Crimean War, the South African War, the World War, and the present crisis oi our impending fate is that our parliamentary, cabinet, and electoral systems have completely failed to provide us with leadership. They have only provided us with men who wait to be pushed from behind. Whcro are our leaders to whom morality is a greater thing than party, love of country a nobler thing than popularity, the safety of our liberties, homes, and children greater than office, the welfare and dignity of the Empire greater and nobler than the electoral roll or the ballot box? "Get out" should be the immediate mandate to every politician who puts the safety of his Job before the safety of his country and people. It is In the management of their foreign affairs that the democracies flounder hopelessly. The repeated somersaults of British Cabinets during ( the last J.B years are due to the deplorable fact that they are afraid to lead. The important question is, however, how far the open challenge of dictatorships to democracy can be successfully encountered by a leadership that chops and changes in the currents of popular agitation. If the control and direction of the democracies is less efficient than that of the dictatorrhips, the answer must be tragically certain. Efficiency and readiness to act will be the final test in the struggle. And only an ostrich coulc< protend that at present the democratic States are displaying the more genuine efficiency in grappling with international problems. In Abyssinia, the Mediterranean, Spain, the Rhineland, Manchuria, and China, the totalitarian States, acting singly, have treated the democracies with supreme contempt. Now they have joined forces; they are united; they want and they intend to take: and, together, they present the most efficient and powerful combination the democracies have ever had to face.

How do we stand? For 50 years our politicians have been meeting in London to provide the Empire with a scheme of Imperial defence. But they have not done in 50 years what any two men of affairs would do in a week. This can hardly be considered a feather in democracy's cap. As a result of this incompetence, from Aden to New Zealand, we are utterly defenceless should Italy or Japan move against us. Unless democracy can do better than this it will not last another five years, and the verdict of history will be that it died of its own follies.

Perhaps its greatest lolly is that it

treats the defence of the realm as a matter of seventh-rate importance. This is a grave and unpardonable error. It was due to this that scores of thousands of precious lives were unnecessarily thrown away twenty odd years ago. If the people of this Dominion and of the British Empire really and sincerely do not wish to see another holocaust of their sons, the remedy is in their own hands. They should from this day forth insist that not a penny is spent on social uplift or any other kind of uplift until their Dominion and the Empire are safe from attack.— Yours, etc., A. W. ANDREW, Brig. General. November 14, 1937.