The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus- FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1931. AT THE CROSS ROADS.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18258, 20 February 1931, Page 6

The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato ArgusFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1931. AT THE CROSS ROADS.

At the mo me n't there is undoubtedly on the Continent ol' Europe a general feeling of uneasiness and expectancy, a nervousness of change and a bel.ef in its inevitability.' In most countries the present is regarded as a period of transition, and the parties which desire a maintenance of the domestic status quo often command only an uneasy majority, with active extremists on dither wing preaching contrary cures for the ills of the day. In some respects a close parallel might he drawn between the situation today and that of a hundred years ago, when a period of arrested development after the Napoleonic Wars had been broken, or was about to be broken, by revolutions in France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, and other States. Once more it is Parliamentary government which constitutes the main issue in the politics of Europe. But to-day reformers are far less agreed about its desirability. In some few countries Parliamentary institutions continue to flourish without serious challenge, and in others a middle party, or group of parties, can be found to uphold them as still providing the best legislative machinery. But in most their value is being rudely questioned both from the Right and from the Left. To the first Parliamentary institutions appear to be too democratic; to the second they appear to be not democratic enough. Almost everywhere it is admitted that Parliamentary methods have deteriorated. The party system known to Victorian England and transplanted to the Continent has declined into a group system, In which innumerable political fragments coalesce and dissolve with bewildering rapidity, often at the bidding of ambitious fac-tion-leaders or for the temporary accommodation of an embarrassed Prime Minister, rather than at the dictates of policy or principle. Ministries seldom find themselves supported by stable majorities; they have to live toy dexterous improvisation and are debarred from pursuing long-range policies. Moreover it is very generally felt that a system of public debate by unstable Legislatures is by no means the ideal way of deciding questions of wide economic radius, or of settling intricate problems which demand technical knowledge. Too often deputies have earned the reputation of being impediments to any effective executive action, however salutary or widely approved. No wonder, then, that in so many cases resort has been had to an autocratic form of rule. Dictatorships have been accepted in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia, and of course in many places outside Europe. But dictatorship is not usually regarded as the last word. It has often found acquiescence simply as a result of reaction in public opinion against the extravagances of democracy immediately after the War, and in momentary disgust at the loquacity and ineffectiveness of public assemblies. Even where the dictatorial power is most firmly established there is violent opposition, and the longer the political liberties of the community are repressed the stronger the opposition grows. There is danger, of course, in oversimplification of statement. Signor Mussolini has built' Fascism into a system, and its adherents regard it as

the only proper permanent basis for the Stale or 'the future. And it has been closely imitated in other countries. Moreover this neo-autocracy often has a curious affinity with Socialism.

In Spain General Primo de Rivera had a Socialist Minister of Labour, and made another Socialist n Councillor of State; at present the governmental system is in the melting pot and it Is not yet certain what will emerge. Some of Herr Hitler’s utterances have a positively Bolshevist ring; and on the last day of the recent Reichstag Session before the Christmas vacation, when proposals were before it for giving relief to the victims of mining disasters, the speeches of the Hitlerites were indistinguishable from those of the Communists In the violence of their attacks on ‘‘capitalist mineowners.” And Mussolini himself has always cultivated good relations with Soviet Russia. Yet there are innumerable proofs of the close connections between parties of the Right in different countries; and 'the divisions of Europe are at least as sharp between adherents of one political creed and another as between race and race or State and Stale. The Bolshevists have their followers in every country. In the German Parliament the Communist Party is seventy-six strong, and in the recent elections for the Danzig Diet‘the strength of the Communist vote was doubled. There is an admitted growth of Communism In countries so widely separated as Bulgaria and Spain. It has been said of Karl Marx that he “found Communism a chaos and left it a movement”; and it might he added that his influence is undoubtedly great or to-day 'than it ever was during his lifetime. In many countries “Marxism” is the definite dividing line between the groups of the Right and the groups of the Left. The followers of Marx and of Lenin are animated —and it is foolish to ignore it—by a missionary zeal for the propagation of their ideas, and they aim at an extra-Parliamentary form of Government on the Soviet pattern. Between them and the Fascists the middle parties of Europe are hard put to it to hold their own. Little Austria wmn a notable victory for stable Parliamentary principles at the last general election that has been held. In Germany Dr. Bruning is putting up a fine fight—with the useful help, it must be admitted, of emergency powers provided by the. Constitution—foi* Parliamentary government against its Hitlerite and Communist adversaries. Germany in fact, with its 107 “Nazis,” seventy-six. Communists, and a bare composite majority over them of middle parties—-to say nothing of its economic distress and widespread un-employment—-is a faithful reflex of Europe at the moment; and it may be that, just as France set the pace for other nations a century ago, further developments in Germany may have repercussions far beyond her own frontiers.