Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 29 August 1938, Page 6

Timely Topics

“The fate of democracy,” says Mr Harold Macmillajn, M.P. (Conservative), in his final chapter, “is linked up with the problem

THE. FATE. OF. DEMOCRACY.

.of economic progress. It Is in great-

i er danger from internal decay than from external attack. Like any other political or economic system, democracy can live only so long as it is able to cope satisfactorily with the problems of social life. While it is able to de'al with these problems, and to secure for its people the satisfaction of their reasonable demands, it will retain the Vigorous support sufficient for its defence. Without tolerance there is no freedom. In the absence of freedom every form of cultural progress is stultified, distorted, and destroyed. The defence of democracy is not merely for the preservation of political liberty; it is for the preservation of the conditions of freedom in which alone the highly individualistic efforts of men in the intellectual and cultural sphere 'are made possible. There is thus a relationship not only between economic progress and the defence of | democracy, but between the preservation of democracy and the possibilities of progress in every branch of science, art, and learning. Democracy is being revealed as much more than a political system; it is a way iof life.”'

~ Writing on foreign policy in Britain and America, a correspondent of “The Times” says: “We are constantly being told that

MONOGAMOUS UNION.

‘isolation' is an impossible and indeed an immoral policy.

This is true, if ‘isolation’ be understood in its literal sense as denoting an attempt to make the United Kingdom or the British Empire an island wholly separate from the rest of the world. It is not true if by ‘isolation’ is meant merely a policy of (abstaining from military alliance with any foreign Power. Such an ‘isolation’ is perfectly compatible with a recognition of that part of our duty t G our neighbours which consists an pursuing a positive policy directed to the maintenance of 'peace by observing the rules which international law imposes on all members of international society, -and by endeavouring to secure that the inevitable process of international change is carried through without the immeasurable, evils of modern w&r. Thus, a perma--nent military alliance is not, as is ’ often implied or suggested, the only possible alternative for us to a policy of selfish isolation, A military (alliance of that kind, between members of the League of Nations, whether separately concluded or created by the Camouflage of an interpretation— I think, a misinterpretation—of the \ Covenant, hampers the allies in deal-.V ing with international disputes on their merits in execution of their obligations under that same Covenant. Such a permanent military alliance—which is not the same thing as military co-operation in a particular emer-gency-may indeed itself become a form of isolation: it separates the 1 allies from other nations (and in effect binds each of them to a support of the policies and interests of its fellow, perhaps at the very; moment when the human race as a whole needs the independent help of impartial statesmanship and unpledged power.”