FREEDOM AND ORDER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4016, 23 February 1938, Page 10

FREEDOM AND ORDER

ESSENTIAL TO DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. “What is the essential problem of democratic government?” asked Mr Geoffrey Lloyd, M,P., in the House of Commons. “I believe it can be stated quite generally. It is the difficulty of achieving a proper balance between freedom and order. Both are funda-s mental and eternal principles in the life of organised communities. Lord Baldwin stated the problem with conclusive brevity, when he said: — “ ‘Freedom without discipline soon degenerates into license, by which many a State has perished. Discipline without freedom will make in time a nation of slaves.’ “Again and again in the last few years we have seen in other countries what a deadly danger to liberty is widespread public disorder. In the end, people will accept anything, they will swing to any extreme, they will accept any dictator to restore that principle or order, without which no tolerable life is possible in any society. “That danger we must avoid at all costs. I think we must equally avoid the philosophy that has invested these proceedings with intellectual support, namely, that the individual is really only a cog in the machine because the State itself is the only entity which possesses a fundamental moral value. Englishmen, I think, will always find more attractive the great alternative principle enunciated long ago by an old Puritan militia colonel, when he said, in quaint Commonwealth English:— “ ‘Really the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the richest he.’ “I make no excuse for reading the Master of Balliol’s comments on this sentence, because they are so apt to my theme and, as I think, so important:— “ ‘That seems to me the authentic note of democracy. The poorest has his own life to live, not to be managed or drilled or u?ed by other people. His life is his, and he has to live it. None can divest him of that responsibility. However different men may be in wealth or ability or learning, whether clever or stupid, good or bad, living their life is their concern and their responsibility. That is not a scientific nor a commonsense doctrine. It is a religious and moral principle.’ “The best way is to make clear to everyone that while we are very ready to learn practical lessons from whatever we may see going on in the world, it is our fundamental aim and determination that England shall remain a free and Christian country.” (