RADICAUSM AND PATRIOTISM

NZ Truth, Issue 772, 3 April 1920, Page 1

RADICAUSM AND PATRIOTISM

"THE TRUTH SHAfI MAKE YOU fREE"

proximation to ideal success than that , ■organised by Lenin and his followers, j and at which our plute penpushers j shriek "Bolshevik I" m an endeavor to ! frighten the ignorant and unthinking, j I The world has been long m search of ■ the royal road to industrial peace. '■ There is no doubt the lives of the work- : era of to-day are relatively fuller, freer, j and much more desirable than were the I lives of their fathers,' and grand- j fathers, but instead of bringing Indus- j trial peace nearer, it but seems to have j driven it further off. The reason for that is that while the workers are getting more out of life compared with what their fathers got, so great has this productivity increased over that of former generations, that they are getting proportionally less of the product of their labor than Jheir fathers got. In a word; they are hot only being robbed as their fathers were robbed, tout they are being robbed of more. That Is why industrial unrest is still with us and Is likely to remain with us. Industrial unrest is an effect. The cause is exploitation and robbery. The only way to stop the robbery is to get rid of the robbers. •-To get rid of the robbers the people must be told the truth, and "the truth will make them free." Freedom is a. priceless jewel, and only by freedom can we, can any people, achieve the highest happiness possible to fallible, peccable humanity.

TO* present 14 fit time of reaction, ft Mften la flood of the most malignant C ■Aft of Toryism seems to be spreading Iyer the world, engulfing, not only r< eau&me* m Which kings reign} but also E tnoM whloh we alleged to be repubHos. " XtadloaUsm «f th» old school represent- b Ad by iiuea men to* brilliant i intellect o ft* Joan Stuart Mill, the political econo- v l&«t author •< the eloauent and noblo t ♦Ssair "On Liberty," is fighting for-lts i UtoT RftdiloaUwa ifl being ao unscrupul- L 4fUfH7 M)d mendaoiously attacked that I many 01 these Who were once proud t td be Hnciwn as Radicals seem to be t Anxious to fafc've it knojwn that, after / AH, they are milch more favorably in<&ned towards Conservatism than JcUdlcalism. In the United States the torord -"Radical" is used as a term -of Opprobrium, aa it was m Britain during the abominable tyranny that preceded And immediately followed the overthrotw of Napoleon. In New Zealand, there to a tendency to imitate the American >u«e of the word Radical. It la one of the peculiarities of our poTlttelans and their press organs that they iftfe extremely imitative; they show rwry little Initiative or originality and, fwSanever they launoh out m any direction with something that they would have us to believe to be new, it is not ft diffiflUlt thing to diaoover that it is fealty a copy Of a British or Yankee Original. Yet there Is no reason why we «hould regard a thing as necessarily good and worthy of imitation because w happen* to have obtained some vogue v Britain or m the United States of •• • • Unfortunately, our imitative politiolans and penmen copy that which is most objeotionable, rather than that Which ts admirable, m other countries. What nne old patriot, Major Cartwrlght, aeolared himself to be a Radical Reformer beoause. aa the word Radical implits, he believed m going to the toot of political evils instead of pott«rthg around dipping at the leaves of the political upas tree. Oartwrlght said taat, although he had the utmost adtnUutlon for moderation m conduct, yet te had no belief m moderation In principle. 'Would you trust a mart who tma moderately honest, or respoct a " feroman who waa moderately virtuoust" asked l&ajor Cartwrlgiht, anid his olltical opponents had no answer to he»e questions. His contention that horoughness waa as necessary m pdli- , ioal principle as it was In honesty or (hoatlty OOUld not be logically confuted, n these times, owing the the misforunes otf the Great War, so much harm as been done to civilisation that there ias -been an uprising of the "dark orces" m all <iountrlea, and these are msily engaged m tramping Liberty Under foot and ■übjectlng Radicalism to torture. • • • Here and there, however, the voices •f great minds are still heard, and what they say, is not without Its good influenoe. Take ifor Instance, Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Flaher. Until Lord Fisher's book, "Memories" tw&a published, and followed by his later book "Records," the only opinion that the peoples of the British Empire toad of this remarkable man was that which could be gained from the Jingo and Tory press. The extraordinary works that he has published, however, show, this aged man of genius to be neither A Tory nor a Jingo, but a true British patriot of a high type, whose beliefs, so far as they are political, differ fundamentally from those which appear to be In the ascendant among the rulers of Britain Just now, which latter beliefs have enabled freaks like that curious •reature, Winston Churchill, to do treat harm to the British people, and to endanger what still remains of the ■tructure of civilisation. » # • • The excellent quality of Lord Fisher's thinking may be gauged by the following excerpt from one of his writings: Newton' saw an apple fall and deduced gravitation. You and I might have seen millions of apples fall and deduced only pig-feeding. It's the same story about Bolshevism. We want some Newtonian Cromwell to enunciate that Bolshevism is only the reaction from repression. England herself is not free, so Bolshevism rears its head. The House of Common doesn't represent the people. It's the baldest, richest;' effetest House of Commons we ever had. Freedom will] finleh Bolshevism. H^eyejawSnce of much of the soundest of tft§ftoachin.ar of the old Radicals is to be tuynd m thin exeurpt. He sayg that thWe m Bolshevism m Britain; but ' why is there Bolshevism? Because, *$a Lord Fisher, the House of Com-

ftions is "the riohest, effetest House of Commons we have ever had;" because "the House of Commons does not represent the people; but," adds Lord Fisher, la effect, give ua freedom, and "freedom will finish Bolshevism." In hie "Memories," Lord Fisher also points out the folly of Winston Churchill's war upon the revolutionary Government of Russia, Practically, that war kept Bolshevism m power, and popularised It cumooiff the peoples of Russia, for Bolahevism was defending their country from invasion. Liord Fisher said that the Bending of foreign troops to Archangel to assist one political faction m Russia against another was as bad as X French troops were sent to Dover to assist the British to repress the Irish. If this were done, said Lord Fisher, all the peoples of the United Kingdom would unite against the French, just as j all the, peoples of Russia united against ! the foreign invaders landed at Archangel. • - • •. ! A London Radical Journalist says that, m spite of Winston Churchill, the peoples of Britain And France will not consent to the continuance of the war with Russia. This he says m the fol- j lowing statements : ! Who will fight? Uneasy Govern- ' ments whispered the question. Could new armies be raised? Leaders furtively sounded the public. They longed to send the veterans of the great war against threatening 80l- | shevism. I But m no way could the voice of the people be stronger than m its downright objection to more soldiering. The British Empire and France have had enough ! So (much so, that some of the troops lured to Northern Russia declared themselves tricked; there was mutiny on British war- j ships sent to the Baltic, and two | divisions of Frenchmen sent to Denikin became so friendly with the Bolsheviks that - they were hurriedly ■ brought home. . . . France and Britain, as a whole, are resolutely opposed to a war against Bolshevism, ; and great masses of people demand that Soviet Russia should be allowed to settle down. That feeling is the main body of the tide which swings so strongly against the Lloyd George Government. The Governments of France and Britain areVeaping what they had sown. The rulers of France ought to have known — and probably did know — from their own history, that outside interference With" revolutionary Russia would simply strengthen the revolutionary Government of that country, just aa outside interference with revolutionary France strengthened the republic during the Frenoh Reign of Terror. The attempt to crush the Liberal institutions which the Republicans of France were setting up led to a war that lasted for twenty yeara, and which, while it finally overthrew Napoleon, left the principles of Liberalism unshaken m the minds of men, and caused them to become eventually triumphant. Revolutionary France ' even produced military men of genius, whose genius might have found no scope for its activities had it not been for the ' attacks upon France. This seems to be ,the kind of thing that is happening m Russia; too. The ablest of the military men of talent who served under the Tsar have given their services to the revolutionary- government that now rules Russia, and the bands of cutthroats led by Kol-chak and Denikln, who pretended to speak m the name of the Russian people — and, because of their terming themselves "loyalists," have been supplied by Winston Churchill with "vast Quantities o f Britain's munitions"— find themselves beaten and fleeing. .. 0 # As Lord Fisher Bays, what the world wants is Freedom. Liberty, not license. If the dictatorship of the proletarian as practised m Russia under the rule of Lenin and Trotsky is bad, let the people have freedom — true democracy, as organised on the lines contended for by John Stuart Mill, Major Cartwright and other forerunners of our presentday leaders of Labor — and they will eradicate what is evil. It is possible that a society organised upon such I'i-ir.kt i ■-•.iri^f-y ti):it roeoirni.-C's' equal opportunity for all and privileges for none, where' ability and service woxild be the only tansmen to preferment, and where no honest or Industrious man or woman would be allowed to suffer destitution or want, where the too t i younpr and too old to work, aa well aa t ; the nick nnd the maimed whether In, >i j body or mind, would be cared for, would - ' be found to -work with a greater ap-