Evening Post THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1938. THE DEMOLITIONISTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1938, Page 8

Evening Post THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1938. THE DEMOLITIONISTS

Amid all the shining glory of the demolition of a synagogue, the Nazis at medieval Nuremberg and elsewhere listened to the proclamation of Herr Hitler's radio double, which rejoiced that Italy "is practising the same anti-Jewish doctrine with admirable energy." Right round the world there is now stretched an amazing chain of demolition. In Germany and Italy they are demolishing a race; in China, the Japanese are demolishing cities; and somewhere else they propose to demolish investment surpluses. Yet there is no common cause among the demo-' litionists—at any rate, not consciously. Outwardly, some of the demolitionists are at daggers drawn. Nevertheless, they may really be building the same thing—crash and chaos. Seldom, indeed, do demolitionists build anytHing else. One type walks,to a dream-triumph over the body of a race, another over the body of. a country, yet another over the body of .a class or an economic section. From the ruins of a synagogue in Nuremberg, a dreamer sees a new world arise. But the world itself—a very old world—laughs and waits. In thousands of years it has seen countless redistributions—of wealth, of power, *of human habitation—but when has it seen a demolitionist who founded in reality the new society he set out to achieve? Nevertheless, there is no outstanding demolitionist who has not his building programme, however impracticable; and who has not also his convinced following. It might be believed, by an outsider, " that Herr Hitler and M. Stalin were a complete negation; and both of them say that they are a complete negation; yet both of them get along fairly well, and are followed by faithful millions, who take extreme pleasure in the demolitions and have no doubt whatever that the promised building will all materialise as planned. It is no use asking how the Russian Sovietists and the German Nazis can both be right, because we know that the same people, the Germans, were Social Democrats a few years ago, and today are 97 per cent, voters for Herr Hitler. Seventy million Germans cannot be wrong, either in the third decade of the century or in the fourth decade. If the Nazi faction that would demolish Jews arid Sovietists, and the Sovietists that would destroy capitalists and Nazis, and the professing democrats that would wreck their own .economic system as a preliminary to the war between democracy and dictatorship—if all these demolitionists, however mutually hateful, are taken at their face value by millions of people, then each and all are factors to be reckoned with. They cannot be disposed of by setting one against another, and by assuming that their conflicting "ideologies" cancel one another out. The vital question is: Has the world sufficient brake-power to avoid accompanying them down the steep place into the sea? I The Nazis' other name is National Socialists. But for years the world has heard much about the Nationalism and Jittle about the Socialism. In New Zealand the position is reversed. Much is heard about the Socialism (a few Parliamentary attempts at denial having died down) and not too much about the Nationalism. What a strange thing is Socialism— as exhibited by Herr Hitler, by M. Stalin, by M. Trotsky, ancl in New Zealand. ,Not least among the strange things is the mental conflict of the British Trades Union Congress which meets at Blackpool while the Nazis celebrate at Nuremberg. British Labour has failed to establish an effective opposition to British Government re-armament, being caught in the cross-current of anti-Government intransigeance and national common sense. There are Left critics who demand more effective opposition, but the sober mentality of Labour forbids it to fiddle while the wprld burns. All the same, the T.U.C. delegates would not love the Chamberlain Government so much did they not hate NaziFascism more. This reluctant compliance with the dictates of national danger seems to be still reluctant, though Sir Walter Citrine tells the T.U.C. that there must be some collaboration with the Government for national safety. If it were not for Nuremberg, might not Blackpool be a different Blackpool? Yet they all seem to be Socialists, with their hands on the real things which they want to demolish, and with their hopes on something far grander even if intangible and unreal. Through his radio double at Nuremberg, Herr Hitler defied the Western world by declaring that blockade of Germany is "a totally ineffectual weapon." He appears to place his trust in a good German harvest, and does not'yet deem it necessary to express the view that a blockade can be broken by the effects of air-frightfulness on the nerves of cities and of people in mass. It is just possible that the greatest real change that the demolitionists could make in the life of Europe would be the dispersal of people by destruction of city life—which would be a change far deeper in meaning than many of the current racial and monetary theories. Is it a curse or a mercy that no honest demolitionist can really see beyond the dust of the explosion that he creates? Importance must be attached to Sir Walter Citrine's statement that the Prime Minister has told the T.U.C. delegation

of Britain's probable allies and of the capacity of her potential aggressors. He made it clear from which quarter aggression was likely to come.

Sir Walter Citrine accuses the Chamberlain Government of misjudgment by allowing the Dictatorship States to outpace Britain at this stage of the re-armament race, and he

anticipates an "approach to a crisis" much earlier than the Government calculated on. This criticism will be more acceptable if it carries with it the co-operation that. Sir Walter Citrine's survey of the facts implies. No one will be surprised to hear that democracy is slow-footed. What would be amazing would be a decision that because-the Government has: been slow. Labour friction in Britain, France, or Australia, must arise to make it slower.