EUROPEAN SITUATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23054, 3 December 1936, Page 7

EUROPEAN SITUATION

SOME ISSUES DISCUSSED ADDRESS BY MR A. SALMOND A thoughtful discussion on various issues in the present European situation was given at the annual meeting of the Workers’ Educational Association last night by Mr A. Salmond. of Dunedin, who has just returned after three years and a-half spent abroad. Various issues arose. Mr Salmond said, as a result of the holding of two antagonistic views of the Stale—the liberal democratic view that the State existed as a means for the good of individuals and groups, and the authoritative, totalitarian idea that the State was an end in itself, controlling, dominating and extending its authority to every possible phase of life. As an example of the latter, he mentioned the matter of military service in Germany. where every young man was required to give two years to military training and six months in a labour camp. This was accepted without question in Germany in a way which would not be possible in England, where most citizens would see in conscription a curtailment of legitimate freedom. Another example was found in the matter of marriage requirements. The necessity of having a certificate of good health would be accepted more readily in a totalitarian country than in a liberal State. Again, there was the question of financial arrangements. The drastic legislation to keep money in Germany by causing Germans going abroad to have only the merest pittance to spend would not be tolerated in a country possessing a liberal State and an active, powerful middle class. In this connection, the speaker mentioned that Germany’s middle class had been wiped out by the post-war inflation. ~ „ , , The totalitarian Slate. Mr Salmond continued, took three different forms —Fascist, Nazi and Communist. He was not prepared to say whether the last-named was tending towards the democratic theory, but the fact that the three had points in common was seen in their reaction to the Christian religion which, when it was true to itself, asserted that the individual possessed worth in himself, quite apart from his national state, social environment, etc. For example, Italian Fascism had made a Concordat with the Vatican, perhaps because of the authoritative and almost totalitarian aspect of the Church of Rome. Again, Nazism had made an agreement with Rome. His own opinion of this was that it was not fully satisfactory and might prove only temporary. The Nazi State had had trouble with the reformed Catholic Church, particularly that minority which stood firmly by the Confessions and refused to accept the inclusive claims of the totalitarian State. In U.S.S.R. it was difficult, to say exactly what the authoritarian State church stood for in old Russia, but it was fairly well established that Russian Communism had treated it as an enemy and had crushed it. Whatever the similarities or dissimilarities of the three forms, their reaction to any system which asserted the worth of the individual in himself was similar. Speaking of the totalitarian State and thought, Mr Salmond said that an essential for clear, sound and conclusive thinking was a willingness to use all the available data on a situation. The limitation of data in the interests of a theory or of ready-made conclusions made thought worthless. He did not wish to say that this type of thinking was confined to totalitarian countries, but thought in such a State was particularly liable to errors of judgment on inadequate data or cooked ideas, and the result was confusion. The position and status of the woman In a totalitarian State were also touched upon by the speaker. In prewar Europe, he said, there had existed a dominance of women by men. The German solution was that woman s place was in the home. Fields of employment had been limited, and the one career was marriage. There had naturally been opposition, but war and the fact that there were 2,000,000 surplus women had been used as a hammer to break it down. The British and French scarcely faced the problem. They had the resources of a middle class and much wealth. They played about half-heartedly with equality, had societies for the protection of women and children and forgot the equal need for a society to protect men and boys. They played about with differential rates of wages and with an economic handicapping and social rewarding of the married woman. Though he could offer no solution, said Mr Salmond, he did believe that the general issue was one underlying the European situation. Finally, there was the issue, more clearly observable, of the relations between intellect and emotion in education. In the present time, the education of the intellect had outrun that of the emotions. For example, the backward child who left school first was backward intellectually while he might well be precocious emotionally. The tendency in the Western world had been to. endeavour to put emotion under intellect. For some time this had worked. Intellect had fastened with eagerness on to the mechanical and material as something that could be gripped and controlled. Now. States, particularly totalitarian States, were dabbling in the stimulation and “education” of the feelings. This entailed a great risk against which they would have to guard—the disparagement of intellect in the process. At the conclusion of the address there was a general discussion, during which Mr Salmond was asked a number of questions. A vote of thanks was accorded the speaker.