The Times TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1937. The Impossible Choice

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 39, 16 February 1937, Page 6

The Times TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1937. The Impossible Choice

It is obvious many people are falling into the mistake of choosing between Communist and Fascist, or whatever other names extreme parties care to give themselves. Nothing could be more dangerous. If tho world lines up on these “fronts,” it will be hard to prevent a eoniliet.

Are the elementary lessons of generations of liberalism forgotten? Is it no longer realised that civilised communities have a bpsie need of two things—liberty and order? Liberty without order topples into chaos. While there is social confusion, there is a trend toward reaction, for mankind, unless it accepts the prospect of a return to barbarism, is obliged to institute discipline and dictatorship to redress the balance. In the process, liberty, as we conceive it in less difficult moments, suffers. Thereupon the pendulum swings back, there is a revolt against despotism.

The art of government is to keep the scales even. Unhappily there is a tendency to-day to lay too much stress either on order superimposed by government, or on freedom to act without much regard for consequences on others. Those caught by the spate of propaganda are unconsciously, whichever side they espouse, helping to destroy liberty. For liberty cannot breathe in an atmosphere of war, whether civil or international, and is stifled by militant Communist and militant Fascist alike

Tolerance of others’ opinions, compromise in national and international quarrels, as much liberty as is compatible with order as is necessary to hold society together, there are the simple but forgotten rules which are fundamental for civilisation. They are forgotten in the violent controversies of to-day; but they remain the pillars of a reasonable world.