FORCE BREEDS FORCE.

Evening Star, Issue 19024, 20 August 1925, Page 6

FORCE BREEDS FORCE.

The growth of a Fascist movement in Great Britain is a development only less deplorable than the Communism which it seeks ls> combat. The Fascists mean well, without any doubt. There is no reason for considering them other than sincere patriots, and such patriotism is something very different from the “last refuge of a scoundrel.” They have a laudable object in opposition to that Communism, chiefly of foreign growth, which seeks to subvert British institutions by all methods—underground machinations and aboveground violence—for the purpose of creating a state of anarchy from which new institutions might emerge. There are conditions in Britain, doubtless, that should be amended, but it is not in that way that they can be improved. Anarchy is the last thing that can bo afforded when the whole nation is suffering from the economic results of war time, and a long pull and a strong pull, by all its classes working together, is required for the recovery of prosperity. And the last state that would result from Communist theories, if Russia is an example of their success, would be a state many times worse than the first.

The cause of the Fascists, In opposing those wild dreams and subtle activities, must be approved by every lover of his country. But their methods have the effect of ruining all. They aspire to be the protectors of law and order—protectors before others of the Constitution. But they bring those claims themselves into the worst ridicule when they adopt the methods of the foreign distemper. In so far as they form a secret society, Britain has no need of a Ku Klux Klan. Such organisations are opposed to all British traditions, and, as America and other countries before it have found, no idealism with which they start can atone for the inherent viciousness of their methods and attraction which before long they are bound to exert most forcibly for the most degraded elements. Law and order can never be served by the violation of them. The Constitution can only be defended properly by constitutional means, which are ample for the defence of it in Britain. There is no reason why Italian Fascism, which has provided an example for this British movement, should bo admired by anyone outside of Italy. The best that can be said for that despotic form of government is that it does possess some

temporary advantages, likely to he dearly bought in the long run, for communities that are unfit to govern themselves.

We have no brief for Mr Cook, the miners’ leader in Groat Britain. In too much haste he would have plunged his country into something much worse than a miners’ strike, when that would be the last way of improving the miners’ or anyone else’s lot. Some of his utterances even suggested that he could view the calamity which he threatened in a spirit not removed from one of flippancy. But tho Fascists wore not needed to deal with Mr Cook, and the letter which they sent him, labelled ‘Communism Unmasked,’ threatening indefinite penalties, and purporting to he tho “first of three warnings,” was not more an unmasking of Communism than of British Fascism. Those methods of the Italian Mafia or of the Ku Klux Klan are quite foreign to Britain. If the claim is true that the organisation which practises them—and which probably has only tho smallest control over its own irresponsibles —numbers now half a million, they are half a million too many. The number of the Communists in Britain is given as 5,000. It is just as foolish to exaggerate their menace as to allow it to bo ignored. . It is true that a mere handful of Communists was sufficient to plunge Russia into ruin, as ‘ The Times ’ has recalled, but Russia suffered the penalty of long centuries of oppression of its submerged classes; while of the capitalist system in Britain it has been said truly that, with all its faults, it can claim this real credit: that since modern industrialism first began, more than a century ago, a hugely increased population has been supported under it in more comfort and prosperity than had over been known before. No sympathy need be felt with Communists —who have been most shocked by tho discovery—because the violence of which they set tho example lias bred violence of its own to combat them. But there must be an end to that tendency. It extends lio further yet than the Fascist movement, despite the wild assertions of the Communists, but tho growth of Fascism would bo only a less evil than tho growth of Communism.