AUSTRA and OURSELVES’

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 77, 1 April 1938, Page 5

AUSTRA and OURSELVES’

SITUATION IN EUROPE .J , AI J)DRESS TO ROTARY I ' VA ! '■ \NUI MAN S VIEWS subject?"' 3 _and Ourse lves” was the Palmer/ 01 an address given by Mr. C. of the i Brown at the weekly luncheon day ■jt Vanganui Rotary Club on Monsent no' he speaker dealt with the prehensive 81110,1 in Euro P e in a comprecal sihi,-f manner ’ outlining the politi“The7 tion - H e stated:— that rst P o * lll about Austria is i? ranhi<7 nsidered historically and geoin cr inj ady ’ there is nothing surprisThat « i* s absorption by Germany, at the? oUntry flrst a PP ea rs on the map thoujT time o£ Charlemagne about one had f and years ago ’ 14 lies on " hat such F >ng deen the boundary between sessel vi' iiisation as Europe then posinvar and the lands occupied by the Char lllB hordes from the East, norf lemagnes em P ire included the Sn/ ! ! ern part of Spain (known as the nowH' s h March), the whole of what is half France, Switzerland, the northern Aust7° £ Italy ’ Saxony and Bavaria, on tll ia was established as an outpost fron'/T Danube to protect the eastern o f Beyond that was the region Serf lavs ’ Poles ’ Bulgars, Magyars and ' Ea.- ' Tt was named Oster Reich or Stern Province. When Charlei ' <igne died France was severed from . f * ii ,y Roman Empire and the title i ] '.j rm peror was held by successive ' r’ of Austria with Vienna as the ’ Leap!' .1. After the Napoleonic and the /Congress of Visma the title was Z abandoned. Hungary was joined to " Austria and the Austro-Hungarian' Empire was set up. t “The Emperor of Austria neverthe- . less retained a loose sovereignty over , ‘ the 38 Princelings that made up modern Germany. Fifty years later Bismarck set out to acquire for Prussia ' the domination in Germany that Aus- * tria had possessed and succeeded through the Austro-Prussian and _ Franco-German wars. The union of I Austria and Hungary was an artificial .one as they had little in common and it was not unnatural that they were Imade separate States after the Great [War. One of the main factors, however, in the policy of the statesmen [who settled the map of Europe in 1919 was that Austria should never be [, joined to Germany and an express [ealu.se to that effect was inserted in the Treaty of Versailles. They obvi«isly anticipated the natural aflinity iffween the two nations. It was obvitls also that Austria was a weak eco- ■ iSnic unit and many of its loans have bien guaranteed by the League of Nations. It has made many efforts to sJpilise its position and in 1931 a ctßioms union was negotiated with Germany but strong opposition from France, based on the treaty, caused its breakdown. That breakdown was one of the factors in the failure of the < Austrian Bank, which was one of the precipitating causes of the Great Depression, at any rate .so far as central • Europe was concerned.

The Austrian Debts “Austria then has returned to her former Empire and it will be interesting to see whether Hitler’s native State will again dominate Germany in place of Prussia as it did in the Middle Ages. Another interesting historical aspect can be drawn from a comparison of the events after the Napoleonic wars with those following the Great War. Great Britain financed the Napoleonic war and after the treaties of peace collected only sufficient amounts to pay for the military occupation of the countries concerned and wrote off a balance of many millions. The Austrian debt was treated as good for a few years but was finally settled by payment of 2s 6d in the £. It was a popular comment at the time that 2s 6d in the £ was not a very handsome composition for an Emperor and someone moved in the House of Commons that in justice t 0 other bankrupts the name of the Emperor should be published in the Eondon Gazette. We all know how the recent war debts have been written off the load being share in this century by the U.S.A. Similarly, the Holy Alliance of 1815 was a centuryold precursor of the League of Nations. Conditions in 1826 bear a remarkable resemblance to those in 1930. After 1826 Europe experienced a succession of booms and slumps until 1848 when, after the “Hungry Forties,” as they were called, practically all the political systems ot Europe went down with a crash. England saved herself by the Reform Act of 1832 and the repeal of the Corn Laws. We have had a parallel of the ‘Hungry Forties’ in the Great Depression. It will be interesting to see whether the Austrian crisis will bring in a period comparable with the revolutionary years of 1848. “I am not a pessimist but I cannot help pointing to two factors in the world to-day that point in that direction. One is what is euphemistically called the recession in America and the other is the position of the world’s wheat figures. 1 don’t propose to go into details in these subjects, but will give you the hint to look for yourselves.

“It is obvious from the newspapers that despite its historical and geographical justification the absorption of Austria has shocked the civilised world and we are all naturally inclined to assume that Hitler and all those associated with him are actuated by hopelessly immoral motives. But to give the leader his due there is more behind it than that. The rulers of Germany have acted as they have done not in defiance of all morals but in accordance with their own code of morals and if we are to understand that action and to estimate the future action of the same powers it is more profitable to enquire where that code of morals differs from ours than to announce the protaganists as hopelessly immoral. I believe that the main spring of the difference is to be found in the ideas prevalent of the functions of the State and the morality that should bind it. The idea behind this action is that of Machiavelli, that the Prince or as we should say the State is not bound by the ordinary rules of morality when a crisis or necessity arises. We speak of the most outrageous conduct as being justified by military necessity. Those who magnify the State place the same virtue in political necessity and under dictatorships the magnification of the State is growing: I hope we have permanently outgrown it in the democracies. A “From Status to ( toitract”

“It is an old saying in the law that the progress of law is frcln status to contract and the conception of contract is what rules normalßprivate relations to-day. Machiawlli would it that when a crisisnecessity L > Prihces or outside of lodi

and externally. It is only a universal similar progress towards the real ol contract in international affairs that can render a League of Nations effective. Some years ago it looked as though the world were moving in that direction but the events of the last few years have proved that one halt of the world is still outside the boundary. If, as Machiavelli says, the morality of individuals does not bind Princes or States as we know them to-day the only criterion of their conduct is their own well-being. It may be difficult for us to get that point ol view but we shall be unable to follow Continental affairs until we can do so. “The difficulty we have in realising that conscientious men can have that viewpoint is due, I think, at least to two causes, both rooted in our history. One is that centuries ago we swept away the system of public or administrative law that has always existed in most continental countries, a system parallel with the system of private law, a system under which political offences stand on a different footing from other offences and may be dealt with secretly and at any time without reference to the lordinary Courts. Under our system, with a few exceptions, the State is subject to the same law as the individual: under the continental systems where the State is concerned the individual scarcely counts at all.

“We have not got rid of the system altogether for the maxim still runs that the King can do no wrong, though the practical use of the maxim is limited. The same idea appears in another form when questions between the individual and the State have to be settled by the head of the department concerned without reference to the Courts. This is a modern tenaency that places the State in a position quite out of line with our traditions.

“The other historical cause for our inability to give credit for the motives behind this coup is the tradition oi free speech and local independence we have had for centuries. Some time ago I heard over the wireless—l think it has since been printed in essay form —an address on the English character by Mr. Stanley Baldwin, in which he referred to one of its bases as the centuries of experience on local councils, committees and associations that had taught the English the art of self-government and had enabled the nation to express itself. It is this interplay of ideas that enables a groundwork of public opinion to be formed as nearly as possible representative of the country as a whole without the slavish adoption of the view of any particular leader. Last week, in a broadcast on foreign affairs, Sir Malcolm Robertson used much the same idea. He said that whatever any one of us may think England’s future policy is being hammered out by Englishmen at meetings such as this, at committees, in councils, in trams, trains and clubs and wherever men congregate and he had the confidence in his countrymen to feel that the ultimate result would be fair. German policy on the question was not formed in this way: the few at the head of the nation did what seemed good to them for the well-being of the nation, and now by parades, showmanship and mass suggestion are inducing the nation to approve. If these two factors had been present in Germany—the concept that the State internally is as much bound by law and contract as the individual and the concept that national action is based on free discussion and gradual development of public approval—l do not believe that Hitler would have so flagrantly broken the Treaty of Versailles. They use the same methods of mass suggestion at the American Presidential elections.

“I do not want you to gather from the foregoing that our system is as light and the continental system as darkness. We have travelled further in what I think is the right direction but there are ominous signs that we are loosing our grip on the two essentials I have mentioned—the reign of law and the right to local independence and free speech. I have already mentioned the tendency of Government departments to evolve a system of law of their own or rather to shut out the ordinary Courts from their doings. And the independence of the individual has been increasingly sapped. It is inevitable that civilisation progresses that the functions of the State should be enlarged just as the activities of the individual increase, and in times of depression the individual becomes so powerless that State action is inevitable; but the tendency to look upon the State as outside the reign of law and the subordination of the individual to the will of the State can lead only to the prolongation of similar ideas in the international world and the repetition of such breaches of treaty and obligations as we have just witnessed in Austria.”