SOCIALISTS’ HOUR OF TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22713, 28 October 1935, Page 12

SOCIALISTS’ HOUR OF TRIAL

A VOTE FOR SANCTIONS MIXED MOTIVES SPLIT IN THE PARTY (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, October 5. “Socialism stands by the consequences of its own long-declared policy. Spcialism has given unswerving support to the League of Nations, and it calls now upon the League to vindicate the expressed will of mankind by the use of its resources to restrain the law breaker.” This is the declaration made by Mr William Robinson, chairman of the Socialist Conference at Brighton. Socialists have had a trying time this week. For one thing, by declaring in favour of sanctions they have thrown away the heaviest stick they possessed to beat the National Government. By-elec-tions have been won by charging the Government with war-mongering. ihe Labour Party has denounced armaments up hill and down dale. It has denounced their manufacture. It opposed in the House of Commons the modest proposals of the National Government for increasing the Air Force to a more reasonable standard. Can they now make these denunciations the main plank in their election campaign? “ What an extraordinary spectacle the Socialist Party presents to-day," said Mr Winston Churchill, at the Conservative Conference at Bournemouth. Here are men who have for years been trying their utmost to cut down every form ot national defence, exhibiting themselves in a most pugnacious and *bellicose discussion with a truculent tone harsh language which I am glad the Government and our Foreign Secretary have not applied in handling this difficult and delicate situation. “ They have shown themselves —these Socialists—willing to fight for any cause they care about. They have shown themselves utterly disdainful of the pacifist propaganda that they have been exploiting at by-elections.” ''LABOUR CANNOT FLINCH.”

In his speech at Brighton Mr Robinson said: — “The League has a long way to travel before there need be resort to arms. In the event of hostilities the withholding of supplies, if rigorously applied, would, I believe, bring war to a speedy cud. In any event, the almost unanimous view of mankind must prevail. No State can continue to flout world opinion, freely exuressed. Should, however, Italy persist in ignoring the view of mankind, should she insist on. repudiating her solemn obligations, should she defy the League and the sanctions it can anply, then/ however reluctant we may be to take the next step, there could be ; no alternative but for the League to attempt to restrain Italy by the threat ot force, which only utter madness on the part of Mussolini would bring into play. So far from organised labour desiring war, it fervently prays for the keeping of peace. It does not believe that sanctions necessarily involve war. On the contrary, it holds that the exercise of moral and material pressure on an aggressor is the one way to restrain the lawbreaker without recourse to arms. “Labour cannot now flinch. It must not shrink from the logic of its considered policy. If the League fails m this crisis in its history it destroys itselt and the hopes of the nations. Lawkssness will'stalk across the world. Under its cover naked imperialism and militarism will hold sway. Dictatorship will flourish. Every aspiration which Socialists have nursed in their bosoms will be crushed. We cannot face such a situation with equanimity, and I earnestly appeal to the movement for unity and ccini.p at this testing-timq in its hisLabour, he added, must stand determinedly for peace and democracy. War and dictatorship were obstacles to the forward march of Socialism. Labour must also continue to work steadily and wholeheartedly for the Socialist State. SIR S. CRIPPS DENOUNCES THE LEAGUE. Sir Stafford Cripps denounced the League as “the tool of the satiated Imperialist Powers”; with , some force he demonstrated that “sanctions” involved a state of war, and “ the whole paraphernalia of capitalism that always surrounded a state of war.” Had they a woikers’ Government in this country as they had in Russia, he said, the whole situation would be completely different. With a Socialist Government there would be no risk of Imperialist and capitalist aims being pursued as to.day it was certain they were being and would be pursued. Then there would be a power of recall, because the workers and not their class opponents would be in control of foreign policy and the military machine. No League system, he added, was a reality within Imperialism. LORD PONSONBY’S WARNING. “ I know,” said Lord Ponsonby, “ that the world war is very vulgar and that sanctions is more refined; but it is the same thing. These great capitalist Governments in their Imperialistic scrambles know how to disguise the matter in order to tike } in the poor, wretched, ignorant The war to which he would be faithful was the war against the‘grim injustice of a society which allowed one man to leave £7,000,000 and another man not to leave enough money to be buried with. The Labour movement ought to be saved from taking a step which was going to lead from a quarrel between Mussolini and Abyssinia into a European war. We wanted to prevent them from widening the scope of the tragedy, and he regretted that they should have allowed themselves to be carried away by a natural hatred of Fascism into supposing that they were going to crush Fascism by war. Mr Mellor held that “they could not destroy Fascism by going to the support of British capitalism," and Mr George Lansbury put his simple case: “ I cannot see the difference between mass murder organised by the League of Nations and mass murder organised between individual nations.” CONFLICT AGAINST FASCISM. The case for the _ Executive aud the majority was put with brutal frankness by Mr Lees Smith. There was not only a conflict on behalf of the League of Nations, but a conflict against Fascism. If Mussolini earned his policy through it would be the greatest triumph which Fascism had achieved, and would prove the effectiveness of Fascism in the field of foreign 'affairs. If they wanted to fight Fascism and Imperialism, they had got to fight Mussolini now. No party in this country was so completely committed to sanctions as the Labour Party. < If they now abandoned the whole tiling, what credentials would they have left for the difficult task which lay in front of them?