NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21516, 13 June 1933, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

IS THERE PROGRESS? "Lord Selborne's complaint that the Labour Party, which promptly and rightly protested against Nazi brutalities, has never made a murmur of complaint against Bolshevist brutalities, raises a question which goes beyond the point put by him," writes Mr. St. John Irvine in the Times. "It is this: Is there any hope of progress in human affairs in tho sense that wc will one day evolve a just-minded people to whom truth, so far as it is discoverable, will always be preferred to propaganda, and personal or party advantage? Is there, indeed, any such thing as progress?" Ho concludes: —"I wonder whether wo must abandon hope of a society in which man will be free and his mind unoppressed. L have long acted on the belief that 1 must not condone in my friend what I condemn in my enemy. Is this absurd of me? Am I to give up tho hope that a world will come in which dissent will be considered rather than repressed, and society will be conducted 011 tho principle that an infinito variety of opinions is better than a single thought? Christ's assertion that there are many mansions in His Father's house seems not to please our Socialists and Communists, who are resolved that there shall be only one mansion, and that they shall design it. i hoso who dislike the look of the mansion and desire to make one more to their taste will be forbidden to lay a single brick in a new style or even to advocate a different method of construction. They will bo 'liquidated' if they do. Must we suppose that progress is an illusion, and that Lenin is only Gradgrind in a different language?" INDIA'S GOVERNMENT "It has been argued with truth," writes Colonel John Buchau, M.P., "that political systems do not appear out of tho void, but have their roots deep in history, and depend for their success upon the nature of the society to which they are applied. Parliamentary democracy is not a thing which eome.<j into being full-grown. A form of government which has served well in the West cannot be indiscriminately applied to the East. Western civilisation has behind it the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the French Revolution, and India has had none of these things in her history. The answer to this objection is that tho present scheme differs organically from any existing Western constitution. What is proposed is not a blind transference to alien conditions of a highly idiomatic typo of government. It is an attempt to build upon the facts of modern India a special and approprivate type of policy. Again, it is said with some truth that Parliamentary democracy has for the moment lost caste in Europe. Why, it is asked, should we be ready to saddle India with what is a discredited type of government? Tho answer is that it is happily not discredited in Britain or in the British Empire. We are slaves of our own achievements. For a century we have been labouring to inspire India with our own political philosophy, and wo have largely succeeded. We have welcomed her as an organic part of an Empire which is based 011 this philosophy. We have helped to create in India habits of thought of which this philosophy is the natural outcome. We cannot exclude her from sharing in what we ourselves regard as the best." JAPAN IN MANCHURIA "We maintain that we did not go beyond the limits of legitimate selfdefence," said tho Australian ConsulGeneral for Japan, Sir. K. Murai, in discussing aspects of the Sino-Japanese conflict at a Sydney function.. "All acts of self-defence, if successful, must necessarily appear to have overstepped tho limits of strict necessity, becauso the mischief which otherwise would have been done has been nipped in tho bud; so it remains imponderable on the scales of justice." Mr. Murai said that •Japan's actions were justified if only to: chock the "Red" menace to Manchuria. Northern Manchuria was a Soviet sphere of influence, infested with Communist agents and agitators encouraging tho people to revolt. It was only a step across the dividing line between the confiscatory labour system of the Manchurian war-lords and tho system of the Soviets, with all the advantages on the Soviet side. Japan had invested £250,000,000 in Manchurian railways, mines, industries, and other enterprises, all dependent upon law and order, good government, and the prosperity of the country, for legitimate returns on tho investment. Those interests Japan was determined to safeguard. "The new Government of Manchukuo," he added, "has naturally all the sympathy of the Japanese people. We saw in it the solution of a problem which had troubled us for 40 years. We saw in it the termination of hostile incitement from China proper. We saw the advent of a civil Government; composed of reasonable men who understood the strategic and economic importance of the territory to Japan. We saw the promise of peace for the future. We wanted peace. We did not, and we do not, want Manchuria."