FOREIGN POLICY OF THE LABOR PARTY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3220, 19 May 1924, Page 2

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE LABOR PARTY.

Whatever dangers lie hidden in the rule of the Labour Party —and they do exist —they certainly arc not those about which there is most talk. The pity, is that numbers of people who ought to know better are wasting their energy in the pursuit of bogeys which belong only to theft heated imaginations. Ear example, Mr Harold Cox, formerly secretary of the Cobden Club and still a Free Trader, now an active ant i-Bocia list is inveighing in the press against Marx. He attributes to the whole Labour party now in office the desire to inflict on our unhappv country a Marxian regime. The plain fact of the matter is that tin,' English Labour party —barring some hot-beads, Communists who try to hang on to its coat-tails however often the big, good-natured body of English trade unionists shakes them nit —lias been’ the biggest factor in stemming the tide against Marxism in Europe. If one turns to Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s book on the Socialist Movement, which was published more than a dozen years ago, he will be found emphasising the fact that Marx’s hooks do not. contain what the English Socialist movement regarded as their gims. Mr Mac Donald goes on to show how both in France and Germany there was a “revisionist” movement away from Marx. As far hack as 1881, he says, strict Marxism was the rock upon which the French Labour party split. English antiSocia lists in calling the Labour party Marxist and Bolshevik, are simply harking up the wrong tree. Just because Lenin tried to impose pare Marxism and only succeeded in establishing a type of Communism, by auars of revolution, the fear implicit and. explicit in all the outpourings of the myopic critics here is that Labour will establish Communism in England by the Lenin method and on the Hen in model.

But the recognition of Russia by the new Labour Government does make us examine the ties —if any — of the present Government with Marxism, seeing that the present Bolshevist Government is nil that the world has of success —if that be the word —in setting up a Government on the pure Marxist ideal. What does Air MacDonald say.’ In his recently issued text'“ The Foreign Policy of the .Labour Party,” (Cecil Palmer), he discusses his party’s position vis-a-vis Russia, and prefaces it with the statement, “it is well understood that the Bolshevist policy is not ours and that we disagree fundamentally witn Bolshevist methods.”

As we ai I six' now tin 1 recogirtion of .Russia hy Iho .Labour party was inevitable' not only from their point of view, lint it was also inevitable no matter how votes were east in the general election ami the other powers are merely annoyed because they did not act before us. Mr MacDonald’s reasons, however, for the recognition are worth citing. lie has very definite views as to what determined tin' long drawn cut opposition —ostensibly humanitarian —in Co user vat ive (jna rters to dealings with Russia. Had there been, lie says, a revolution of White Monarchists, it would have been .just as tyrannical and quite as bloody, but in that case forgiveness would have 1 been easy and recognition would not have been withheld It was the class that conducted the revolution. the ( lass victimised by it, and the aims of the revolution that determined the attitude of other governments, and neither the methods nor the .events. During revolutions like those of France and Russia, when the reaction against the old established svstem is bound on the nature of tilings to be cruel and frenzied, foreign representatives have to be withdrawn, but so soon as the revolution is over, both wisdom and interest demand the resumption of responsible ■A'.vd, vuwuvM relations. . . .

Diplomatic relations he adds, are in no sense a partnership; they are-noth-ing more than a channel for oflici.i I communications and he stigmatises the erpiivocal position in which M. Krassin was so long kept, as “sheer humbug.” At the same time Mr Mac Donald deals faithfully with the Russian government and declares that its policy encouraged Ibis country to maintain Die unsatisfactory relations. “If. did harbour for a long time a belief in a world of revolulion on Bolshevist lines; it spent money in foreign countries —our own included —promoting su; b a revolution; it used diplomatic privileges to carry on a conspiracy and propaganda; it claimed for its agents in countries like Georgia, immunity from arrest and at the same time (in' right to overthrow the government to which they were accredited.” lie deeply deplores the idea at back of youthful Bolshevism in that it acted as if it owed no obligation to any non-Gonunun Ist State, was bound by no rules of the game, but used its will and wits without scruple and solely to suit its own purposes. lie speaks too of “the queer non-moral mentality of the Communist as making him an ever ready tool for tin* purposes of Mnscow. ’ ’

At Hie same lime tig impugns Hie methods of the anti-Bolshevists here and savs:

“The very worst defence against tlds, however, is 1 lie boycott of 1 lie Moscow Government, tin* wild whirl of forgery, of ignorance, of fa ice which has been nine-tent lis of Hie anti-Bol-shevist propaganda in both Great Brit-

ain and America.” Mr Mac Donald indeed strongly maintains that “the firm ami well informed opposition of the second international, between PM!) and 111212, inspired mainly by the Labour and Socialist movements of Great Britain, Belgium, Germany and Hie Scandinavian countries, bore Hie brunt of Hie light against Bolshevism in its young vigorous days and it is only by a con tinua i ion of the same policy that the noxious weed is to be idea rod out. ’ ’

For ( iio rest I his; linn s(;itriiicnt drills wit li I lie 1,.-ilium- policy in its ivlnliou to America, to European affairs ;i ml to i 11 1 rn: 1 1 i on;i I credit, :t ml ! '.o more i; i»i reads il tin- more on-- is ,-isl on ished nt jiny fear of n party led by Mr I{; 1111 s: i \ M :tc I )onn Id. Who among our ;i l;t i-m ist s would look in sncli :i hook for this pronouncement on -■or I i iiriil;; I nln t ions

‘‘Whatever may be said about the matter from the -point of view of rigid reason, I am quite sure that no responsible lesman will ever persuade (he people of this country to disarm in

a world a rincd I o t he t eet hj. The!r cap.-K ily In be a fra id will prevent I hat. So long as 111-- world is armed, the simple traditional deleriiiiiiing purposes of British military police will remain active. We cannot feel safe it' any one power should be able to dominate the Continent, and we shall therefore continue to be interested in a balance of power policy.” But lie is a revisionist as regards the League of Nations, and say.-,. ‘‘Wo

must find in the League of Nations the focus of our contacts with Europe. We must have no sectional alliances. We must give no guarantees of a special kind; we must regard the League no longer as an executive committee of the victors with other nations invited to look on and give an appearance of respectable authority to what the victors (and not always all those) decide. But until the League has obtained the confidence of all the important nations, we must not become the mere catspaws of the League’s devotees, and do nothing except through the League.” Mr MacDonald —and obviously as lie leads his party, the Government is to take a “canny” line. While he regards the present capitalist system as wasteful and often cruel, lie says: “The transactions are conducted, however, by a delicate mechanism easily put out of gear and controlled by a handful of powerful people and a Labour Government would never think of a mere wanton interference which, however good its paper justification might he, would lead to unnecessary trouble. In spite of what is said to the contrary there is no special difficulty in conducting foreign trade under conditions which would yield far greater benefits to the whole world of producers and consumers than the present system of unregulated and, from the point of view of the whole community, unorganised enterprise. . .

“Credits are made by trade—-hon-est trade, and we cannot afford (less to-day than over before) that the financial iv stem of Hie world should be the master instead of the servant of industry. ’ ’

fliis mtiiudy is of course, iu surprise* to such as have read Mr MacDonald’s books, for he long ago committed himself to the view that “the Stock Exchange itself is a necessary institution and will continue to lie so for a, long time to come,”

In short- Ramsay the Realist sums up li is party’s aims in this new book: “It will not begin its work with the vanity of a child thinking it can begin all things from the beginning again. All impressions given to the contrary are" but the partisan expedients devised by political opponents to stampede electors by fear.”