The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1934. THE WAY OF THE DICTATOR.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20234, 19 February 1934, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1934. THE WAY OF THE DICTATOR.

Lmitn fU»nna'a«m* > R. B. BRETT & SON NEW BRIDGE HOUSE, 3WS4 NEW BRIDGE SUED LONDON. LCU

THE COMPLETE subjugation of his opponents is the logical necessity of Dollfuss’s programme if he is to survive at all, for the technique of modern tyranny is so systematised that once the first step is taken the rest follows in fairly regular sequence. Hitler followed Mussolini, with slight variations, and Dollfuss has carefully studied both. Even Roosevelt has taken lessons in the same school, but whereas Italy, Germany and Austria were suffering from that feeling of inferiority which readily reacts to emotional patriotism, the dictator’s chief strategy, Roosevelt is heavily saddled with democratic institutions and a nation that does not feel in the least inferior. Mr J. A. Spender summed his position up recently:— I can imagine, he said, that the other Dictators are watching President Roosevelt at this moment with a very sincere pity. He is trying to do with a free Press, an untamed Congress, and opponents threatening to bring him before a Supreme Court what they would tell him can only be done by their methods. Under their system, the proper place for Mr A 1 Smith, the directors of the Federal Reserve Bank, or any others who question the infallibility of the White House on currency or any other matter would be the dock or the concentration camp. But Roosevelt has missed an important cue from Mussolini—that shirt-sleeved praetorian guard which has made dictatorships exciting in other countries. Much good material goes to waste in the .United States, where sober-minded ’plumbers join lodges, and where, according to a compatriot, “ they wear plumed hats and call each other Sir Knight and meet by the light of the moon with pine torches and swear strange oaths that they cannot spell.” Mussolini has made full ,use of the appeal of the picturesque to the uneducated masses. It is the sugar-coating to the pill. The dictator’s personal ascendancy is assured by an awful levelling process which reduces a whole nation to mediqcrity. But the stronger the dictator the more certain his successor, and his system, are of failure.

HOTELS IN NEW ZEALAND. Hotel accommodation in New Zealand at the betterknown tourist resorts reaches a high standard and has won praise from many distinguished visitors. Even off the beaten track much of the accommodation is of a class that approaches that available at similarly populated districts in America and Great Britain. The American tourist who complains that he found a lack of running water in bedrooms at hotels in some parts of New Zealand probably forgets that well-defined standards have grown up in older countries and that the cost of improvements at small towns in the Dominion is very high. The proprietors of many country hotels are doing their best to improve accommodation in the face of serious handicaps. Despite the fact that they have no steady stream of traffic such as probably exists at similar resorts in America, buildings are being ipoderniscd year by year and the comfort of the visitor is given first consideration.

QUICKER THINKERS. npHE PERTINENT REMARKS of A an overseas visitor on motordriving habits in New Zealand are worthy of consideration in view of the increasing traffic along the main highways where the slow driver is, frequently enough, an embarrassment and a danger. The habitually, slow driver tends to have slow reactions in an emergency where the faster and more alert man sees his danger and is out of it immediately. Careful driving is never to be deprecated, but it is not always wise to think twice, particularly at intersections. Beginners should be taught to approach intersections carefully and once on them not to dawdle but to get away quickly.