SHAW SEES THE POST-WAR WORLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25048, 11 November 1944, Page 10

SHAW SEES THE POST-WAR WORLD

*OLD ONE WITH SPRING CLEANINGS"

An article in which Mr George Bernard Shaw gives his views on the jfuture of capitalism and of the world is a feature in a recent issue of the London Sunday Express. The views were expressed in reply to six questions asked him by Miss Dorothy Boyal. The questions and replies were as follows: . . Miss Royal: Are you of opinion that the war has caused so much devastation and social upheaval that it will result in a general impoverishment of Europe, and that Britain will become, as Dean Inge says, a poor agricultural country of 25 million inhabitants without foreign or invisible trade? Mr Shaw: No. The war will end when St has destroyed enough capital to make the rebuilding of Europe lucrative and further destruction dangerous. Capitalism has hitherto always stopped short of suicide, and there is no reason to fear that it will lose its head completely this time, especially as it is now State-financed That is to say, it is no longer the old Cobdenito capitalism, ■but modern fascism, which is now firmly established' in big business. No Need lor Anxiety In Cobden's time capitalists provided jfcheir own si#fps and factories ,their own mines. Nowadays tho State builds tho ships and factories, and fcnakes a present of them to the capitalists, and the mines are dug as public futilities with public money. Consequently no enterprise is now too big for capitalism. So you need not be anxious. Fascism will pull Europe through, And give us a Beveridgian scrap of "plunder at the same time by way of ransom. And we shall go on denouncing it as the blackest of tyrannies while plunging into it up to the neck, i Miss Roj*al: Would you prefer to see ,ihe European nations formed into a [[United States of Europe, with equal fcitizenship and common currency and free trade within its borders, as in the [United States, in preference to a continuance of the existing separate Sovereign States guaranteed from {aggression by the Allies as laid down in ghe Atlantic Charter? Mr Shaw: I would, if I could see the faintest prospect of such a paper Utopia leing set up or lasting longer than a house of cards. States will not give up Stheir sovereignties all together in a fjlump, but they will do so bit by bit very rfeluctantly. ! Do not deceive yourself. The world [ls not going to be a new world. \ou Jrill have to put up with an old one frith occasional spring cleanings, in

which a good deal of dirt will be swept under the furniture instead of being removed. It is easy to draft Atlantic Charters and hold Quebec Conferences, but when you want to abolish a customhouse or move a frontier, or even introduce so simple and obvious a reform as summer time, it costs a war to get a move on. Miss Royal: Will there be a tendency among the various nations of Europe, especially the smaller ones like the Balkans, to imitate Russia and form themselves into Soviets, or will they, like Eire and Switzerland, remain as improved democracies, retaining capitalism with a substantial leavening of socialism, and possibly communism, without which no community can exist? Mr Shaw: It is the big Powers that will have to imitate Russia. Success is always imitated, willy nilly. Russia s success now that the Soviet has got nd of Trotsky's all-or-nothing catastrophes and has settled to Fabian socialism find collective farming, has been so stupendous and so utterly beyond the possibilities of capitalism—even the Fascist capitalism—that her rivals, for the moment her reluctant allies, dare not let her get so far ahead of them in civilisation as she is at present. What tho small States do does not matter. Miss Royal: Stalin is reported to have said recently: "There are two theories—firstly, to every man according to his r.eeds. That is Communism. And, secondly, to every man according to the value of his work. That is socialism. We have chosen the you consider it likely that tho Soviet will drift into capitalism, and can you explain briefly the difference between the system of government based on the "man value" theory nnd the governments that exist in Britain and U.S.A.? Stalin's Objectives Mr Shaw: What Stalin means by his romark is plain enough. How are you to give men what they need unless they also produce what they need? Production must come first before you can have anything to give. Yet you must feed babies, who produce nothing; soldiers, who destroy everything: artists, philosophers, and employers, who amuse others or tell them how to produce, but have themselves to be fed by those whom they amuse.ar direct. Therefore, the Soviet must put production before need, and, by piecework and every other honest device stimulate the baker to bake two loaves, although one is enough for his own need, and so on all through industry. And it must not tolerate unserviceable idleness on any terms, as we do. This is not a move back to capitalism. It is a repudiation of it.

Mies Royal: Do you believe, as many advocate, that after Germany has been defeated 50 years of resolute Government by the Allies will be necessary before she will be able and fit to be bo permitted to govern herself without preparing for another war of conquest and revenge? Leave Germany to Hersell Mr Shaw: No nation can be resolutely governed except by itself. The old ascendancy in Ireland was always clamouring £o# 20 years of resolute government, but it never achieved it. The little finger of the Irish Free State proved thicker than Dublin Castle's loins. All this talk of governing Germany when we cannot govern ourselves is childish nonsense. Leave Germany to herself and there will be a reaction against Hitlerism as surely as there was a reaction after Cromwell's major-generals. When a horse is down you may have to sit on its head for a minute or two before helping it up, but you cannot sit on its head for 50 years. Both horse and man must get on 'their own legs again pretty quickly if they are to survive. In the second League of Nations which is being planned in the United States, and which will certainly be formed, Germany and Japan will have to be represented equally with Britain, the tlnited States, Russia and China, or the League will be only a military alliance to keep two great nations crushed. Miss Royal: You take my breath away, Mr Shaw. What is the next thing you "would do if you were Mr Churchill? Mr Shaw: I would secretly guarantee Hitler a palatial residence free of rent and rates and £20,000 a year free of income tax, to begin _ when Germany surrenders not unconditionally, but on conditions dictated by nio. Good morning.