NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23662, 22 May 1940, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

PERSONAL INITIATIVE "Don't let us deceive ourselves," urged Sir Archibald Sinclair, the British Liberal leader, in a recent speech. "We have got a long way to go before wo win to victory—a very rough and painful way too. We must be prepared for great sacrifices, not only the heroic ones of life and treasure on the large scale, but also in our ordinary daily routine. In addition to doing what our freely-elected Parliament has laid down for us to do, like military service or paying our taxes, wo ought to ask ourselves what more we can do to provide for the comfort of our fighting men and to win the war. Liberals at any rate will not need me to convince them of the importance of not relying on the Government to do everything, but of personal initiative and of freo and voluntary service."

PASSIONATE FAITH NEEDED "The Church exists first to worship God, and second to declare His Word. But it is for you and all men to consider," said the Rev. Dr. N. Micklcm in a recent address, "whether there can in this world be justice or peace or a civilisation worthy of man except upon the basis of faith in God and obedience to His law, whether the values wo cherish are safe if we throw away the theology on which they rest. You say: 'You believe in (jiod and in the natural law; won't that do?' I answer, frankly: 'No.' Such a belief is the pale and fading relic of what was once a vital Christianity. To-day we are confronted in both Germany and Russia with now religions fanatically hold; the democracies cannot resist their onslaught supported only by a vagnj? and tepid belief in God and decency. We must come back to passionate faith in a supernatural religion. I do not say we must get religion in order to defeat the Germans. No, but unless we turn back to religion, we shall lose the spiritual battle against Germany whatever the issue of the war." EXPLOITING MASS EMOTION "Hitler has a complete and utter contempt for all forms of knowledge and intelligence and believes only in the emotions of the masses," said the Hon. Harold Nicolson, M.P., in a recent speech. "Again and again ho has said that the man who can arouse at the same moment the fears of the masses and their greedy instincts is certain to provail. His application of that theory to his own countrymen has been amazingly successful. What is interesting is that Hitler applies this theory not only to his dealings with his own people, who are by nature lacking in moral courage and have a tendency toward servility, but that he also feels the same system will work with foreign countries. To a certain extent it does. There is no doubt that Hitler's methods' of propaganda. appealing as they do to the fears and the emotions of the masses rather than to reason and logic, have a certain effect. Yet in countries of very old civilisation and with peoples of great personal intelligence, such as Britain and France, this method does not work in the end. Hitler's great mistake has been to imagine that it is the weaknesses of human nature which in the lend prevail. What prevails in the end is the strength and virtue of human character."

BODILY DISCIPLINE BY FASTING There does not appear to be much need to warn ordinary people against undue zeal in the duty of real fasting. By far the greater trend is in the other direction, writes the Rev. John T. Payne in his book "The Search Eternal." It must be said, however, that fasting in one form or another seems to be a law running through the whole scheme of creation. The rivers at times must go their customary ways lacking the torrents of water that at other times hasten their progress and enhance their beauty. The earth itself cannot always be absorbing gentle influences, but must, for its own welfare, presumably, feel at times the cold grip of frost and blizzard. The lower animals know alternately seasons of plenty and scarcity. Only man, it would seem, rebels against privation, whether of a self-imposed or' arbitrary character. And yet in the instances, all too rare, where men of worldly affluence have voluntarily adopted rigidity in food for other reasons than religious, they have testified to much improvement in their physical, mora! and intellectual outlook. A man's body is just as important as his soul, because it is just as sacred, but it is not more so. The experience of most of us is that if our physical natures are not to take complete mastery over us they must be regularly and systematically made subject to vigorous discipline.

TOTALITARIAN ECONOMICS On the economic side, the definition of totalitarianism is not merely that tho State controls the whole of the nation's economic life, but also that it does so with the object of spending the nation's resources on things that do no benefit to the standard of living of the people, says Mr. Geoffrey Crowtlier, editor of the Economist, writing in the New York Times. Judged by this test, Britain and France have become, since the war broke out, nearly as totalitarian as Germany. If they lag behind in totalitarianism it is simply because their war economy is still only a few months, old. When they have.fully mobilised for war they will control industry and commerce fully as completely as Germany. What is more, their objectives will be the same: to induce tho people to work as hard and produco as much as they can, but at tho same time to cut their consumption to a minimum. It could hardly be otherwise, for this is tho economy of war. But this at least can be said for British economic totalitarianism: there is every evidenco that it will bo temporary. It is not a system that has been deliberately contrived in peace; it has been hastily improvised in war; and the reluctance with which the Stato has acted is shown by tho fact that in most cases industries have been invited to control themselves. Tho conclusion of the matter, in short, seems to be that it is not tho outward form of government that matters so much as tho inward spirit that inspires them. What must at all costs be avoided is totalitarianism of the human spirit; and so long as tho ordinary citizen retains his right to be informed,.to question, to .compare and to criticise, the Stato may assume all manner of arbitrary and extended powers and still not be the master. It will be merely a more powerful, perhaps a more effective, instrument of the people's will.