ORDER WITH FREEDOM.

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20635, 22 October 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

ORDER WITH FREEDOM.

Democracy’s Task : : Need for Organisation

(Sir Wyndham Deedes in American Journal.)

WHAT IS THE AIM of good government? If it is not merely to {rive orders, but to draw out the best that is in the individual citizen, then the State must be based on a complete harmony between itself and a people grouped in free associations. The corollary of this is that the citizen’s proper environment is the local unit—one which is large enough to give a man the chance of expressing himself, and yet sufficiently small for him to have personal contact with the other members of the group, for this alone will Ensure the Right Relationship between the individual and the group. If the unit of government is too b»g, the citizen is in danger of being treated as a means, and not as an end. These fundamentals will be generally admitted, but there is often a failure to conform to them in practice. We have a lesson in the recent history of Germany, example of the organisation of a whole nation, the like of which the world has never seen before. An outstanding illustration of what man can do and of what (according to the point of view) man should or should not do. It is a lesson for the Western democracies, for apart from the reputed menace of Bolshevism from within and of threats from without, one of the strongest contributory causes of the rise of National Socialism was the social and political disintegration of Germany after the World War. Many persons are inclined to judge Germany superficially and to suppose that it organises only for war. This is not the case. It is organising also for the purposes of peace—social, industrial and cultural. Government implies the exercise of responsibility. In National Socialist Germany responsibility is concentrated in the Fuhrer. In a free democracy we claim that it is diffused among the citizens at large. But for this two things are needed, money and a leisured class. Germany today has neither money nor a leisured class. Indeed, it may almost be said that the only peoples that can afford the luxury of free associations are the United States and the British Commonwealth of Nations. All the greater need to show what they are worth! Having none of these things, Germany, Italy and Russia say that for a nation to survive there is no other method than that of the totalitarian state. Consider what totalitarianism means. The Germany of 1938 has three characteristics. It has Order, Discipline and Compulsion. It has centralisation of government. And it has mass ideals, which are necessary for a mass society. The battle of Waterloo was fought to overthrow a military dictatorship. The next Waterloo may be fought on the fields of commerce, industry and culture. What preparations are the Western democracies making to meet the challenge? Is arming for defence enough? It is one of two roads we may take. If we do, then we are accepting the challenge on the challenger’s ground, that of macht-politik, the pursuit of material power and material progress. If that be our goal, what equipment have we to help us reach it? Compulsions in democracies tend to be negative, for example to abstain from crime. There is no positive compulsion, as

in Germany, to work, to become fit, physically and otherwise, for the duties of citizenship. The Anglo-Saxon system of government is not uniform but multiform. Its social services such as public health, housing, relief and so forth, are operated for the greater part by the State, but _ in large measure also by voluntary agencies. This system is not centralised. Great emphasis is laid on local units of government, which enjoy a wide measure of independence. Finally, should there be in the democratic national life some national cause, spirit or “ideology”? If so, what should it be? The present age, it seems to me, believes neither in God nor in man, but in blind irrational forces, the reason of unreason. But cannot the Anglo-Saxon peoples show the world a yet more excellent way by believing both in God and man? That should be The Goal and the Ideal. The national life of the Western democracies contains much that can contribute to development on these lines, for it is based on two main principles: the first is the freedom of the individual and the correlative duty of responsibility as citizen and neighbour; and the second, freedom of association and service within the unity of the State. So far, at least, as the democratic countries are concerned, these two principles of voluntary responsibility and free association are justified on historical and psychological grounds. The art of self-gov-ernment was learnt in the small town and village; it is the place of early association that most naturally evokes loyalty and service. If this is correct, democracies must plan, both industrially and socially, in a manner to rekindle the spirit of the neighbourhood, and counteract the effects of this atomistic society, the unnatural product of the industrial age. It is in the local unit of government that this end can best be served; and it is here that the partnership between public and private service is most easily effected. The greatest task which lies before the AngloSaxon people is to show that Freedom is Compatible With Order that discipline can be voluntarily assumed; and that diversity of means can be made to serve unity of purpose. The nations which can reconcile these seemingly irreconcilables will have made the greatest contribution of all times to human progress. It may be that mankind, in its long and arduous journey, has come to a crossroad. On one of the signposts is written the word “ Things . . on the other “Men.” The first road leads through power and might, quantity and mass, material goods and the kingdoms of this world, what Bardyaev, whose words I use, calls “civilisation.” The other leads through Quality, Values, Spiritual “Goods” and what the same writer calls “culture.” Whoso takes the first road uses men as means; whereas along the second road man is the end, and “things” are used only as means to its attainment. If we wish to follow the first road, we must employ compulsion, regimentation, centralisation and uniformity; and if the second, freedom, individual responsibility, and variety.