NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1926. PEASANT INTERNATIONAL

Northern Advocate, 18 February 1926, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1926. PEASANT INTERNATIONAL

Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper.

Dr. Lothrop Stoddard, In “Social Classes in Post-war Europe,/ ’ discusses from a new angle the future of civilisation. During the past few years, he says, certain tendencies have been discernible, from which inferences can be drawn with some degree of assurance. He points out that before the war the social organisation of Europe was fairly uniform, but the war and its aftermath rent the fabric from end. to end, especially on the Continent itself. The lauded aristocracy and the middle classes, says the doctor, made the greatest sacrifices, sustaining proportionately heavy casualties, bearing the brunt of the burden of taxation and subscribing to the war loans. As a reward they were cruelly hit. The landowners lost their lands, sometimes, as in Russia, by direct confiscation, sometimes, as in Rumania and Czecho-slovakia, by legislative action, payment being provided in long-dated bonds. Even in Britain, the nation least affected by these currents, many owners were compelled by financial pressure to dispose of their estates. The middle class fared even worse. In many countries it has been virtually exterminated either by violence or poverty. In Eastern and Central Europe the middle class, as such, is no more. Its members - have sunk into the ranks of the proletariat. Elsewhere they con-' stitute the “new poor.” It did not go under without a struggle. In Germany and in Italy it has striven more or less sueessfully to assert itself. ’ Dr. Stoddard insists that Fascism is essentially a middle-class movement. But over a great part of the Continent the eclipse of this order is complete. Meanwhile the -agrarians, and at first the industrialists, had prospered. Not for years had agriculture been so lucrative. The peasant ate his fill -and sold his surplus at high prices. Fortunes were made from the soil. For the industrialists in the cities there was, during the war, plenty of work and soaring wages. They, too, basked in the sunshine for a space. But the: bubble burst. In the general collapse of industry which followed the war the city worker found himself jobless and foodless. He coquetted with 801-I shcvism, but his attempts to improve] his lot by revolution came, as a rule, to nought. Dr. Stoddard is convinced j

that Bolshevism is a spent force. It has demonstrated its inability to feed the community. When the factories | are destroyed or run upon Soviet principles the operatives starve. The conduct of industry depends upon conditions which over large areas in Europe have ceased to exist. But the land is indestructible, and will always s.upport life. The peasant is master of the situation, and knows-it. In Germany and Hungary he suppressed Red outbreaks by the simple expedient of witholding supplies. In Russia, as soon as he had acquired the land, he called a halt. It was in order to propitiate the peasant that Lenin was constrained to recognise private proI party and introduce the new economic | policy. With the breaking up of the 1 large estates in Europe the agrarians have become more numerous, ami are conscious of their strength. In many parts of Europe, notably in the east, the cities are dwindling. In 1015 Petrograd and Moscow had a population of 2,31.8,000 and 3,800,000 respectively. Five years later the figures were 1,000,000 and 1,050,000. "’Political control everywhere is passing to the countryside. Unless industry recovers very soon, a most improbable contingency, Dr. Stoddard foresees a return to the state of affairs which prevailed before the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. Then the towns were comparatively small and nninfluential. Europe was primarily agricultural, and the rural interests were economically and politically paramount. Since 1918 they have won back much of their former ascendancy. The peasants have organised themselves politically. They have captured the Government in CzechoPoland, and Bulgaria, and throughout I Central and Eastern Europe are a factor to be reckoned with. Nor are they content with a purely national organisation. Beside the Red International of the proletariat and the White International of the upper-middle classes, there has appeared a third group—the Green International of the peasants, with the four-leaved clover as its symbol. Little is heard of it in the outside world. But it is very active on the Continent; its adherents are con-1 tinually increasing, and Dr. Stoddard believes that it is a political force which may dominate largo parts of Europe in the future.