FEAR IS RIDING THE WORLD TO-DAY

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 21 (Supplement)

FEAR IS RIDING THE WORLD TO-DAY

WHY NOT A FIVE-YEAR PLAN FOR NEW ZEALAND? (Written for the “ Star ” by E. J. HOWARD, M.P.) The greatest enemy of mankind is fear. Fear causes disease, hatred, and unkindness. “If we have suffered,” says Darwin, “ or expect to suffer some wilful injury from a man, or if he is in any way offensive to us, we dislike him; and dislike easily rises to hatred.” The dislike and even hatred for the individual is transferred to nations by groups of people when they fear that nation. We fear Russia. For some reason we have always feared Russia. For years we had unmounted guns at Lyttelton ready to resist the Russians. Booms and torpedo nets had been con-

structed to go across the entrance to the harbour; mines and counter-mines

were prepared to blow up any ships from that country that might try to | enter the port, and in every port in i England the same precautions were j being adopted. So we have always j feared Russia. Once we feared her as a fighting nation, and now we fear her as an economic nation. We really don’t know why we fear her, but fear is one of the last enemies that mankind has to conquer; and in spite of education and culture (which may not be the same) this old man of the sea sits on our shoulders, and we carry him about although he is always clawing at us. So the military fear of the ’eighties has been transferred from the children of that generation as an economic fear to the children of to-day. “ I will never stock Russian goods,” said one trader. Soon after the war that same trader said: “ I will never stock German goods again so long as I live.” But his warehouse is stocked with German goods, and why not? If the young German to-day has to pay for the folly of his fathers, he must pay in goods. If he has to pay in goods, then those who demand that he shall pay must accept his goods. “ I will never stock Russian goods,” said our merchant. And to do him justice he meant it. At the back of his mind is the fact that Russia repudiated her debts. He will stock French goods although France paid only about four shillings in the pound. But he fears Russia; this merchant of ours fears Russia. lie is not quite sure why he fears Russia, but there it i£. Fie came into the world fearing Russia. If there is anything in pre-natal influence, then he inherited fear of Russia. If you asfl. him why he fears Russia he says because they are Communists. But the Russians have always been Communists to a certain extent. They held their lands in common or on a communal basis, the same as our Maoris, in parts of Russia. They did not realise the bene* ; fits of the freehold. New Zealand's Trouble, i Now in New Zealand, the most ‘adr vanced country in the world, the land | is mostly freehold. It can be bought ; and sold or mortgaged. And so last year there wasn’t a farmer in New Zealand who had any wages to draw [ after he had paid the interest on his . mortgage. We have reached a stage r when we caifnot grow wool on our free- ‘ hold lands economically. With ewes ’ at a pound each it costs one shilling per pound to grow -wool. With wool at fivepence the overhead costs are larger . in proportion, so that we are up against a problem. Unless we improve our ’ herds and attend to our grasses we can- , not produce butterfat under one shil- ' ling per pound and pay the interest ’ on the mortgage. On land that will only carry a cow to the two acres and . those cows only giving 1501 b of butterfat average, the farmer cannot pay his ’ interest. And there are thousands of , these, and below this average. So that we have nothing to blow our trumpets r about. But we fear Russia! We are ’ not quite sure why we fear Russia. ’ One man fears her because she uses ’ prison labour to chop down trees. But we use prison labour to quarry shingle, * and we compete against free labour l with the product. In our streets can be seen concrete posts carrying the electric wires, made by prison labour. ’ The fact is we must have some one to \ fear or some nation to fear, or we ’ would fear each other. We all remem- | ber the reply of the hundred years old hermit. “ I am an old man,” he said to the young solitary, who came to him for advice. ‘‘And I have had many troubles, but most of them never happened.” We have inherited this fear, and perhaps it is just as well that our leaders manufacture a common object

that we can expend this weakness on. At one time it was my lot to travel extensively in Australia. From Perth to the Roper River is a long way. And strange to say, the environment of the two parts of the same country is quite different. If one could travel on a wireless carrier-wave from one part to the other, it would be hard to realise one was in the same country. Australia is the largest island in the world, and covers an area of nearly 3,000,00 C square miles. Size means nothing unless we can compare it with something else. As long as a piece of string! So then we will use our own country as a comparison. New Zealand is 104,751 square miles large, or small, according to the way we look at it. So Australia is a large country compared with New Zealand. But let us compare her with Russia. That country measures 8,400,000 square miles. Then if we say from Perth to the Roper River in the north and we are in a different country apparenly, what must it be like in Russia? Then in population Australia, with her 6.500,000 compared with Russia’s 160,000,000, is like a mosquito on an elephant. There are probably thousands and thousands of people in Russia who have never heard of the revolution; who don’t know anything about the Soviet Republic. So we, who are living in a country a little over 100,000 square miles in area, cannot visualise, cannot form a mental picture of Russia. One of her cities (Moscow) has a population nearly twice that of the whole of New Zealand. She has 52,000 miles of waterways or rivers. Some inner harbour there, all right. But she has always had an Access to the Sea League. But we fear Russia! We fear her economic plan! And behind that fear is a feeling that we, too, ought to have an economic plan; and because we have not. got an economic plan there is a tirige of jealousy. So we dislike her economic plan because we have no economic plan. But others fear her because she is interfering with the Church. And our beloved Archbishop Julius said at St. Barnabas Church last Sunday that there were many thousands of faithful, true, and honest men, who never go near a church; men who do not hate Christianity, but who have an intense dislike for organised Christianity. He appeared to be alluding to New Zealand and speaking almost in the centre of a church settlement. Then he is reported to have said ‘‘the lofty ideals contained in the Sermon on the Mount are very beautiful, but they cannot be carried out by men to-day.” But we dislike Russia because a section of these 160,000,000 people say they too dislike organised Christianity. The fact i 9 we must expend that inherited instinct or emotion “fear” on some one and so we choose the Russians for the time being. Cannot Go Wrong and Prosper. if the Russians are right they will

win out. If they are wrong, they will fail. No nation can go the wrong way for long and prosper. For a moment let us examine the plan. Not her politics, but her economic plan. When war broke out we had leaders on every corner trying to enthuse the young man by telling him his country needed him. For war! The leaders in Russia tried to tap that same psychology for peace. They said to their young men, we have a plan. We will ask you to give of your best for five years. We want to increase your • output by 25 per cent, each year for five years. You will not get any extra pay or extra privileges, you will have to work hard without any personal gain for yourself but all for Russia. You will cry and want to turn back before the five years are up. Some of you will break down in health and strength, but if you take it on you must stick it. Will you do it for Russia, asked their leaders. And the young men responded with a will. They set up committees and factory worked against factory in competition for achievement. The first year they increased their production by 30 per cent. The second year the strain began to tell, but they kept up to their programme. Then the Western world began to take notice. Some laughed, some sneered; but slowly it dawned on them that it was an immense idea. So they became frightened and asked what would Russia do with her goods? They said Russia must dump her goods into other countries. They forget the 100,(XX),000 of her own inhabitants standing almost in queues waiting to be served. But Russia wanted Western

machinery and Western engineers, ana g she had only goods to offer. So some I of her production had to lie exchanged I and the Western people became afraid. I Never mind her political form of organ- I isation for a moment. We lovers of I freedom known as “democrats” will not I tolerate her curtailment of the freedom I of the individual, but if New Zealand I had a plan, if young New Zealand I could be induced to say, “We will wipe I out our national debt in five years. We I will give of our best. We will double I our output for New Zealand.” If young I New Zealand said we will ostracise the I man who tries to take advantage for I himself. “We will give up much of our I idle time for New Zealand. If all the I people of New Zealand said “for five I years we will sacrifice self for New I Zealand,” who would dare say it was I not a Christian ideal? And that s the I basis of the Russian five-year-plan.