THE VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 95, 16 January 1943, Page 4

THE VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL

Like other representatives of learned institutions the Chancellor of the University of New Zealand can do no more in these days of world upheaval than emphasize in his public utterances the principles that should govern the vast task of restoration after the war. No one can predict what the world will be like when the last shot has been fired, but whatever its appearance and condition, and the state of mind of its diversified peoples, it is unalterably true that well-tested principles, with the fibre of generations of human experience to strengthen their enduring quality, will alone save it from the dangers and miseiies of chaos. Mr. Hanan, as Chancellor of the University, has done well to emphasize that point, and to elaborate it in various ways. The value of human personality, for example, should be given its true estimate in rebuilding our social and economic structuies. We have witnessed the progressive enslavement of the individual under the totalitarian systems of our enemies. The spectacle, a tragic one, has given fresh emphasis to the need for conserving the freedom and personality of the individual in the countries where these things still have a chance of survival. That chance may disappear if the significance of certain tendencies toward more intensive bureaucratization, and State regimentation of citizens, are not noted and resisted in time. To many the picture presented by Mr. Hanan of coercive discipline. bureaucratic regimentation, and standardization enforced in the interests of a dictatorship which is a form of dominating government that glorifies the State and material ideals, would seem an unthinkable reality in British communities. But it is the means toward that end that makes that end possible, and none can deny the fact that to a large extent, a very disturbing extent, the machinery for official regimentation, of the people of this country on totalitarian lines ahead} exists. It is tolerated as a war expedient, but it should be ruthlessly scrapped when the conflict is over.