Evening Post SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1939. AFTER THE NAZI MODEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 12

Evening Post SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1939. AFTER THE NAZI MODEL

Attention has often been directed to the basic similarity of the totalitarian systems of Fascism or Nazism and Communism—a similarity cloaked, but not altered, by the antagonism of the protagonists of the different systems. Another resemblance, now of vital interest for New Zealand, is that which the brand of Socialism imposed on this Dominion is gradually coming to bear to Nazism. We may pass over the familiar, but important, points of resemblance to be discerned in the tendency to vest dictatorial powers in individual Ministers, to legislate by edict (under a general authority obtained from the Legislature) and to transfer the real authority of the State from the elected Parliament to the party organisation (the Labour Conference and Caucus). Recent events have furnished equally striking, but to the public less familiar, evidence of the steady trend of Socialism to the form and model of totalitarianism. Labour jsupporters may deny this vehemently, the more so because to many of them even the name of Nazi is anathema, but that does not change the fact. That this fact is plain to the unprejudiced outside observer was indicated by the "Economist" comment which we quoted last week that the rapidity and efficiency with which exchange and trade control was imposed "should put the 'old hands' at totalitarian economics to shame." Still stronger evidence is to be found in a•, survey by the, "Round Table" of 'The Economic Regime of the Third Reich." Study of this reveals that Nazism and New Zealand Socialism are travelling on parallel lines, allowing for the divergence accounted for by differing geographical, industrial, and international policy conditions. Nazism is at present ahead, but Socialism is going in the same direction. For (example, read this:

It was therefore decreed -. . . that in future no foreign purchases, even of essential goods, should be contracted for without prior,sanction and allocation of the requisite exchange. Exports were similarly made subject to approval and licence, to ensure that the resulting foreign exchange should be duly remitted to" the Central Fund of the Reich, and that commodities required to satisfy domestic needs should not be sent out of the country.

Except that there is no present need to prevent the export of commodities needed locally, this might have been written about New Zealand. There is a familiar sound also in the statements that "the control authority was clearly faced with the task of discriminating continuously between a variety of alternative imports," and it had to "determine or limit the quantity to be sanctioned in each case." What is coming is indicated in the fact that Germany, having adopted control, was "soon involved directly in the supervision,^if not actual regulation, of large sections of domestic production and industry,"

A further similarity in the operation of the Nazi and New Zealand Socialist systems is in the use of public works. The "Round Table" states that, to stimulate domestic trade and turnover at "all costs, Germany used an extensive creation of credit behincl her closed exchange frontiers, with direct application of this credit by "the. Gpvernment itself.

The Government quickly became the largest single entrepreneur and employer of labour, engaging in public works, including (but at first by no means predominantly consisting of) military preparations. Their justification was based on grounds of national utility and the. employment thereby afforded, without particular regard to their earning a profit or earning the interest due on the funds expended.

Again, with less emphasis on the military preparation part, this might have been written of New Zealand. And again in Germany's next step we have an indication of what is steadily coming here: price control (that is instituted already) and supervision of production itself, both in secondary industry and farming. Though not all-embracing, this covered a wide field and entailed "absolute control over the creation

of any new enterpi-ise. This has to receive Government sanction both centrally and regionally." Herein ,we see the same system as our own Industrial Efficiency Act, with its licensing plans. Sufficient has been quoted to show that a Labour Party, which found the National Party's furniture loan proposal so mirthprovoking because Nazism had done the same, has a great deal to explain in its own Nazi-patterned system.

To the further stages of the Nazi system, not yet reached in New Zealand, even greater interest attaches. The "Round Table" records

that to the measures of economic

control

eliminating capital movements and exchange fluctuations, directing trade and supervising prices and production, one important element must be added which is essential to the working of the whole system: the regulation of working hours and rigid fixing of the remuneration of labour and of all services. Indeed, the writer concludes that the price of labour has become the corner-stone of the whole structure. Rigidity of wages and long working hours maintain the purchasing power of money in domestic goods, but when fluctuations do occur, especially in imported goods, note what Germany does to meet them: Loss of purchasing power has to be accepted without complaint or compensation. Strikes are proscribed. The standard of living of the worker acts as the shock-absorber for upward or downward movements in the volume and price of the available consumers' goods.

We have not reached this regimentation of labour; but the "Round Table" declares that it is "essential to the working of the whole system." Some of the Socialist theorists and union leaders appear to recognise this in their appeals to labour to change its attitude and to the trade unions to become instruments for stimulating production, instead of fighting for the best terms. They appear to believe that this can be achieved voluntarily; but Germany did not think so—hence the abolition of trade unions. Is New Zealand Socialism, having applied compulsion and regimentation to one part of production and trade, prepared to apply them also to labour? On Germany's experience it is essential—which means that regimentation must break down unless it is complete. And if regimentation is complete —and some of our Socialists are possibly willing to accept it-*—what does it offer? The "Round Table" after summing up the material gain (ending unemployment) and the loss (long hours), arrives at this conclusion: ' ,

But if it has banished doubt and despair among the sorely-tried population of Germany, it has produced little happiness or comfort. The atmosphere seems always to be tense and strained. It is over-charged with purpose. People seem to be continuously subjected to the restraints, inhibitions, and exhortations of a crew training for a boat race; that is an ethos few of us would care to endure for a lifetime.

That great democrat, Lord Bryce, noted many years ago that certain peoples, such as the German, were ready to accept loss of freedom if dictatorship offered material gain, but the British have never been of this kind. And is it likely that the British stock of this Dominion, when even material benefits are doubtful, will accept regimentation on the Nazi model-—when they recognise it?