DEMOCRATIC IDEALS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 220, 17 August 1939, Page 9

DEMOCRATIC IDEALS

HIGHER THAN DESPOTS’. EARL BALDWIN’S CASE. “GREAT ADVENTURE.” (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received August 17, 9.20 a.m. MONTREAL, Aug. 16. Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, speaking to-day before the Congress on Education for Democracy, called by the Columbia University here, outlined the common ideals that inspire Britain and America, and the differ r ences of environment and .circumstances.

Earl Baldwin then launched into a consideration of international affairs of the moment, saying: “As the world is to-day, great events in one continent have repercussions in another. None can live out his life in a walled garden

. . . Democracy itself and government have become a ‘great adventure’ . . . No student of history can have any doubt but that Democracy is by far the most difficult form of Government. “In a Totalitarian State the citizen has only to do as he is told. . . The success of Democracy depends upon everyone realising his or her responsibility to it. The democrat should work for and be as prepared to die for his democratic ideals as the Nazis and Communists arc for theirs. . . Every free human institution, if it is to be preserved, needs its watchdogs, and no institutions more than a Democratic Government.

“There are some politicians, as there are some newspapermen, who have a contempt for the ordinary man, and think trrat any garbage is good enough for him,” he continued. “Politicians may draw cheers and newspapermen may make money,' but power and. influence they will never get by such means.” NOTHING TO FEAR. He then took up a discussion on “ideas so loaded with dynamite that they may blow systems, that appear to be founded on rock, into fragments,” mentioning Bolshevism and Fascism specifically, and stressing that, whatever good things may be achievable under those systems, they should also be achievable under Democracy. The speaker reviewed the history of the general strike in England and said that the worst danger from Communism was over in England. Earl Baldwin said that England had nothing to fear from Fascism and Nazism, save if great social suffering occurred, and lie insisted: “It is when a Totalitarian country tries to impose its system on people outside its borders that its action becomes tile concern of free men.” HARDER IDEALS.

Earl Baldwin, concluding, said: “Wo have to show tfie world we have ideals no less tnan the rulers of the Totalitarian States and that our ideals are harder of accomplishment, because they are far higher. They involve the co-operation of men of tneir own free will, endeavouring to work w r ith God Himself in the raising of mankind. “In a Totalitarian State the will must be surrendered to the will of one fallible man— and none is fitted for absolute power over the wills of his fellow men.”