Evening Post. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1935. ROME AND THE BRITISH ROCK

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 144, 14 December 1935, Page 10

Evening Post. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1935. ROME AND THE BRITISH ROCK

Over a great portion of Europe the divorce of Governmental action and public opinion is complete. Governments either ignore public opinion, or re-create it in their own likeness, as Dr. Goebbels has done in Germany by control of Press, platform, radio, and even to some extent of pulpit. In the dictatorship countries no force of public opinion, apart from the opinion that the Government wills, is to be reckoned with. No dictator walks in fear of the kind of "political hurricane" that the "News-Chronicle" reported as blowing up in Britain over "the Paris terms"; and any hurricanes that can' threaten the courses of the Duce or the Fuhrer must come from beyond their borders. This obliteration, or corruption, of public opinion has important diplomatic results. One result is that Rome has much more to fear from popular opinion in Britain or in France, the remaining sanctuaries of democratic power, than from popular opinion in Italy. The Duce can judge accurately his strength in his own country, but he must study public opinion in Britain and France in order to judge the strength of Mr. Baldwin and M. Laval. Also—and still more important!—so must they. To illustrate the point, let it be supposed that Germany, and not the League of Nations, were fixing the terms of Italy's price in Abyssinia, or whether Italy should receive a price. The decision of the Hitler Government would be final in Germany. Herr Hitler would fear no German "political hurricane"; and the Duce would realise that Hitler's reply to him was definite so far as concerns Germany—that there would be no going behind it to a German House of Commons or to a German free Press. Thus an exchange between two dictators makes for simplicity, if for nothing else. But when the Duce deals with France he necessarily studies the precarious political situation (internal) in that Republic; the degree to which these Republican dissensions facilitate the exerting of pressure on M. Laval; also, the degree to which pressure • successfully exerted on M. Laval can be passed on to his collaborator Mr. Baldwin. So here is revealed at once one aspect of the contest between dictatorship and democracy. . The Abyssinian crisis has struck one of the periods of internal weakness in the political structure of a-free France; and because M. Laval is not a dictator—because he is still answerable to a Chamber that is reduced to confusion by group politics and economic upset —the Italian dictator can exert here a diplomatic leverage. \ Hence the Italian plan to win a diplomatic campaign .in. Paris, and through Paris in London, and (through both Paris and London) in-Geneva. That is a glimpse of the weak side of democracy; now for a glance at the stronger side. VA British Prime Minister thus impressed with the fact of his French collaborator's weakness, and well knowing himself the risks of League of Nations sanctions, would be compelled by prudence to ask his Cabinet whether their country could incur the responsibility of rejecting the Italian price and of standing out for a full Covenant settlement. Statecraft is a matter of expediency as well as of principle. A statesman cannot ignore war risks, nor the responsibility of a national decision. What ,is required to meet the argument that League sanctions are too risky a proceeding is not merely a technical counter-argu-ment but some non-technical revelation of faith. And it is here, exactly here, that democracy may be strong, and may by spontaneous action reinforce the resolution of its leaders and give them confidence and courage to adventure into the uncharted seas on which the League has begun to sail. Mentally and intellectually no man can be "sure" (we are using Mr. Baldwin's word) that the heroic voyage will succeed. Such ah adventure needs faith in Providence as well as in sanctions; and this faith can best be given to a democratic leader by a spontaneous movement of the people under him—an inspiration from which he may renew his own resolution. An unmistakable welling-up of public opinion is the best authority that a people can give to a Government to pursue a course possibly involving war, in preference to payjing an aggressor his peace price. I Such a mandate is -not possible in a country where public opinion is dictated. It is possible only in a country of freemen, moved by their own public spirit. Are we witnessing this phenomenon in the home of the old democracy, Great Britain? Out here in the Antipodes, in such a crisis, we see Europe only through the mirror of the daily news: and, on that evidence, there is no indication of any active popular opinion in France on the vital League question of whether Italy shall- be fought off or bought off. There is nothing to contradict the impression that the people of France were willing to see their leader bargain with Covenantbreaking Rome. Where, then, can the League Covenant find a champion in public opinion except in Great Britain? Apparently not in France, and certainly not in the United States, because while the people- there-are-quick Jo say .-that

the League must fight a clean crusade, they are equally keen to keep out of it. American public opinion will certainly not spur President Roosevelt into the League; French public opinion tolerated till the last moment a Rome bias in the policy of M. Laval; will, then, public opinion in Britain rise to a critical occasiozi and create a new Geneva front, firming British policy against French weakness, and writing a new chapter in democratic history? If this happens, the peoples of the other units of the British Commonwealth will see that the lead has come from that section of the British people who are nearest to the guns and the bombs—and this fact speaks volumes. On the face of all that is feared from war—in spite of gas masks, bomb shelters, perambulator shields, etc.—the British people, without dictation, declared for sanclions. In October the Trade Union Congress made its famous decision—and the T.U.C. takes no orders from Mr. Baldwin or from anyone except itself. In November the electorate returned the Government with a sanctions mandate. Thus everything that has happened has proclaimed the uncompelled devotion to the League cause of those of our Commonwealth peoples who live closest to the firing-line. No one, of course, can see far ahead in the Europe of 1935-36. But enough has happened to show that democracy still fights the old fight in its historic citadel, the British Isles. Dictators, unfettered in their home States, ride over Covenants. Democratic leaders, hesitant in lack of popular instructions, listen for the public voice, and listen not in vain. Today it is clear, more than ever, that the risks of the League crusade will'not be taken unless the British people say so. Can we of the Southern Seas do less than follow the lead that is set for us by our fellows in the danger zone—the men and women who look the European peril full in the face and who so far have shirked it not?