The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. "Lucca Non Uro." WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1934. THIS FREEDOM

Southland Times, Issue 22296, 11 April 1934, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. "Lucca Non Uro." WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1934. THIS FREEDOM

Mr Shaw industriously disparages parliaments and in his advocacy of efficiency, which has vices as well as virtues, offers the dictators as idols. At the other end of the argument, if that word may be used, is Mr Stanley Baldwin, who is just as industrious in reminding British people that the freedom they enjoy is worth keeping. This freedom may lead to all sorts of waste, and it may deserve much of Mr Shaw’s criticism, but one of its advantages is that a man like Mr Shaw can say whatever he likes in his efforts to instruct and amuse us. That surely is enough to outweigh many of the advantages of any form of Stalinism or Hitlerism. This freedom must be constantly guarded because it is open to attack from many points and on many sides. Often the attack is so cloaked or so unconscious that it is established in the outworks before its real significance is discovered. Every extension of the State’s interference with individual freedom, even when this is supposed to be done with the idea of promoting the individual’s welfare, represents an attack on that freedom of which Mr Baldwin has spoken eloquently. Dictators today rise to power as Socialists, elevating the State to the supreme, all-covering position; tyrants of old did the same thing, only they admitted that they considered themselves to be the State. This freedom deserves to be cherished: If ever there was a time when people who cherish the traditions of freedom of this country should guard that freedom it is the present. People should remember that they can do no greater disservice to-day than by holding up to contempt and ridicule the men who are working that democratic system for which our fathers suffered in the past. It is an interesting thing to reflect that in our agelong Parliament there has been handed down without a break for centuries from the older generations of members of Parliament and of peers that English conception of freedom of speech, of fair play to all opponents, and those qualities which we like at times to consider as most characteristic ’ of our race. If ever anything should happen in this country that should break that tradition I doubt very much if it could ever be restored as we have known it. But while free speech is a fair phrase and valuable, it is shared with importances that too few people pause to consider. What is the use of being .free to talk if no one can take any notice of what is said? What is the use of being free to talk, if the ideas to

be expressed are made to pattern? What is the use of being free to talk if the things you do, if the intimate details of your life are regulated to suit some tyrannical ideal of what is best for you? Starting from that point one may ask what is the value of talking about and bringing in controls authorized by legislative action when it means whittling away personal freedom? Cheese controlled, reading controlled, private contracts controlled by the State, individual pleasures controlled by the State. These things do not represent long steps in the political march. As collectivism under various names is advancing and the State is being made into a tyrant, people should remember that our forefathers suffered for the freedom they handed down to us, and we to-day should be ready to suffer trade disabilities and Mr Shaw’s sneers, in order to preserve it, and to consign efficiency to Hell if it means the wounding of that freedom.