WORLD'S ILLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 31, 5 August 1936, Page 13

WORLD'S ILLS

POWER OF MONEY

WHERE BRITAIN STANDS

AN AGE-OLD POLICY

"The love of money is the root of all evil," Dr. A. G. Butchers quoted at the W.E.A. Class in Current History on Monday night at the Trades Hall/ Vivian Street, as the fundamental explanation of the" ills from which the world is suffering today.

Common people of every nation the world over, Dr. Butchers slate:*-, were bewildered at the rapidity of rec&nt events. The year 1936 had already seen Italy annex Ethiopia, Germany remilitarise the Rnincland, Austria re-arm, Turkey refortify the Dardanelles, the Japanese elections frustrated by a military putsch, Spain in the throes of civil war, Nazi Danzig defiant of the League of Nations, Russia linked by military treaties with France and Czechoslovakia i nthe west an<J Mongolia in the East, Palestine under military law, France controlled by a So-cialist-Communist combination, ♦ and Britain feverilhly re-arming to the tune of £300,000,000. Yet all military preparations, military alliances, and activities and revolutions were alleged to be in the sacred cause of justice and peace. HYPOCRITICAL JARGON. The lecturer qtftoted Sir Norman Angell to show theVhypocrisy' of current national and international jargon in respect of serving peace and so-called collective security. On the face of it to arm was a preparation for war, to disarm a preparation for peace. Why, then, did not the nations disarm and live at peace? The last war had been fought to "make the world safe for democracy." But democracy was being trampled afoot throughout the world by ruthless dictatorships of the Right and of the Left. In all this welter of; tyranny the Anglo-Saxon peoples-still stood-firm for democracy, which Professor Laski had described as a "special combination of universal suffrage and economic oligarchy." This union of incompatible elements worked well enough so long as the economic oligarchy, better known as big finance, or big business, was definitely on top of the world and adding wealth to wealth. But the seeds of the inevitable conflict were being sown as on the one side employers formed companies working under the aegis and control of big financial organisations internationally interlocked, while employees on the other established trade associations' with international affiliations leading eventually to the formation of ;the Communist International. So far British countries and the United States had avoided.open hostilities between money-power and manpower, both sides showing a genuine measure of respect, more or less, for the fundamental principles of democracy, which the lecturer described as including* freedom of opinion, of expression, and of action of a non-violent character, the preservation of order and the rule of law enacted by a majority of the people's representatives duly elected by, a genuinely secret ballot. CONTEST OF MOTIVES. When.the evolution xof social and political economy in various countries of the world reached the stage where the economic oligarchy's. private profit motive seemed, likely - to- be Subordinated to the public • benefit motive of the nation as a whole, the executive of big business and high finance began to be '_ really : afraid, and to exercise their money-power to control and. direct the essential services of nations which, the lecturer stated, included education, the Press, and ultimately the radio and all other forms of newsdissemination and propaganda;' financial credit, labour, and marketing conditions, and: consequently the national standard.of living; and the police and military forces, and the manufacture of supply of armaments and munitnos of war. : In a world of plenty poverty was made rampant; in a world struggling to promote the Wilsonian ideals of the League Covenant—disarmament and humamtarianism through international co-operation—economic warfare developed inevitably into open preparations for a war of death and destruction on a gigantic scale. The international ramifications of. high finance and the armaments, ■ industry were traced to show how defeated Germany, for instance, had been provided with enormous loans from the victorious nations, which she had used to re-arm to such an extent that at last England, the only country that had voluntarily dis--forced to follow suit and embark on a colossal re-armament programme itself. COMMON PEOPLE'S WEAPONS. _The^ common- people had two ways of endeavouring to -maintain and develop the principles of democracy and national well-being in the face of the deflationary and dictatorial measures being adopted in all countries where economic oligarchies exercised a controlling influence upon the machinery of government. The lecturer described the dependence, for example, of successive French Governments on the regents of the Bank of France, who were, through interlocking, directorates in control not only of the banking but also of the industrial organisation of the country. . The ballot box was one of the: principal weapons to the people, and it would be interesting to see how far M. Blum, the leader' of i l stJea^ y: Social Government elected by France, would succeed insubordinating -these ■ magnates to the • 1u£ c ? lectors- The other method was thdt. of the Russian Revolution which had forced the tempo of social development by ruthless and unscrupulous recourse to force on a scale previously unheard of, even" in capitalist countries. After that it was war to the knife, without rules. Nothing mattered but victory. The end justified the means. For the vanquished the end was annihilation; for the victors the spoils* of victory. The law of the jungle had consequently for the time being usurped the place of •international law as well •as of national, law, in the sense in which that term was understood amongst English-speaking peoples. In lending support and money to the authoritarian counter-dictatorships of the -Right, the economic oligarchy therefore took the brily: (Course left to it by the action of the Communist International. Fascism and' Nazism copied and improved on Communist methods, with the result that for most countries of Europe freedom of opinion, of expression, and of action no longer existed, while most of the energies and resources of the nations were directed primarily to prepare for internecine war which, apparently, all definitely expected shortly to commence. THE ENGLISHMAN'S WAY. .In Great Britain the/struggle between money-power and man-power happily still followed the path of peaceful evolution. and constitutional progress, because both sides valued the imponderable principles of personal freedom as being of more value than material wealth and comfort. The essential genius of the Englishman was his capacity for compromise, which was something no foreigner could rightly appreciate in English character. What appeared to other

peoples as. inconsistency and perfidy was merely that capacity for give and take by means of which Great Britain solved both her" domestic and her foreign problems.

After sacrificing expedience to principle by disarming to the point of weakness in the hope that practice would impress a world impervious to precept, Britain found herself impotent in the face of a situation "where principle could only be effectively supported by force. Without that force in the Mediterranean she had been compelled to sacrifice principle to expediency and to adopt the .humiliating policy of running away from danger. As a result Britain was now re-arming as fast as she could. She was pursuing her age-old policy of maintaining the balance of power in Europe in order at all-costs, if possible, to preserve the peace -by compromise until she had regained the power to defend herself and those peoples who looked to her -for protection in all parts of the world. It wascthe aim of the British democracies to defend the principles of law and order above everything else in both national and international affairs. DEMOCRATIC IDEAL. Probably more than any other country in the. world, Britain enjoyed the respect and trust of the nations. The democratic nations and the small nations regarded her as' their leader and protector. It was under her protection that New Zealand was at present engaged in what was probably the most advanced attempt yet made under any system of democratic government to achieve a notable measure of social justice for the common people by peaceful means. The success of this experiment would mean much to the world. The lecturer concluded by quoting Professor Laski, who said, "A new and satisfying democracy can only bo built when,. by the common [ownership of the means of production, we have ended the exploitation of man by man. And since that, in essence, is the democratic ideal, I know no objective more noble for which to fight." An interesting discussion followed.

The subject of the next lecture will be "The New Russia."