Thursday, May 28, 1942.
THE RECORD.
FOUR
HE nervekrieg is beginning to tell at last in England. And trangely enough it is not among Britain's industrialised poor that the symptoms have appeared, but among the very leaders of English politics. Consider this paranoic outburst from Mr. Duff Cooper, if you doubt my claim: "I believe we are the greatest people on earth, and I am not at all sure that we are not the greatest people who If that have ever been on earth." does not argue hysteria or bomb-hap'iness, I would dearly love to have an alternative explanation. For myself, I have never been a partisan of Mr. Duff Cooper, but in my most vehement detestation of his politics, I would not have believed him capable of descendHe ing to such depths of fatuity. seemed to think his remarks might be construed as boasting and might therefore offend against modesty. But his statement is altogether too big for boasting. It would have winded Gargantua. And it does not offend so much against modesty as against reason and credibility. I devoutly hope the matter escapes the attention of Mr. Belloc. For, since he found it odd that God should have chosen the Jews, to what speculation might he not be driven at the idea of the English choosing the English? And now, moreover, that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has given such a lead, there will be no holding the
British Israelites. For whatever they have hitherto found written in the Pyramids, which proves the British to be the lost tribe of Israel and all -in -all as insupportably splendid, will be nothing to what they may now aspire to find written in the Constitution. It's only a step from Land's End to Heaven. But, ludicrous as the claim must have appeared even to his English audience, the whole affair has yet a seriFor the fundamental danous side. ger we professed to find in Nazism
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It claimwas its Messianic character. ed a divine mission to rule the world which we quite properly denied. But the boot would be on the other foot if we, who rule a quarter of the habitable globe, were now to claim we do so by some kind of divine vice-gerency and It seemby our inherent excellence. ed, moreover, a most infelicitous occasion for "boasting." No one should know better than Mr. Duff Cooper, who was on the spot when we lost our
Eastern bastion-Singapore-and again when we reached stalemate in the desert, that we are very far from being out of the wood yet. In times of tribulation it is more customary and more reasonable to proclaim our actual sins-and we have plenty both of omission and commission-than to flaunt alleged virtues which cause us not only to be good, but to be very much better than everyone else. There is also another aspect of the matter. If it is true, as has been repeatedly alleged, that the Italian morale is tottering and the German morale
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98 ST. GEORGE'S TERRACE. becoming unsure, nothing would be better calculated to revive both that such empty vaunts on the part of Our enemies would British leaders. not believe it for a minute, and we must first convince them on the field of battle of our martial superiority before we can rationally expect them to accept the thesis of our general moral excellence. Again, such a claim as Mr. Duff Cooper's must revive in
the enemy an instinctive horror that in the event of victory we are conAnd templating another Versailles. that would be the last straw for everyone if the Allies acted under the "top-
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because of such a wage.
Now,
re-
membering the Arbitration Court's refusal on two occasions to raise the basic wage, the opposition of workers But to find cois not surprising. operation from employers in local government is a new and heartily welcome departure. It might be regarded as a Provic.:Pr, tial reward that just at this time the third official Catholic Statement on Social Justice has been issued, and that its theme, "For Freedom," hinge on the "fight for the small unit against the large." This applies not only to economics, that is, to the championship of the craftsman, the small business man, and the small farmer against and mass -production, big business, large-scale exploitation of the land for govof profit, but also to the question ernment. While we recognise the probable inevitability of surrendering. certain individual and social rights to the interests of self-defence, this can only be a temporary and indeed a desperate measure. After the war we insist upon decentralisation to the very limit compatible with the common good. If our policy in this direction can be brought into action it will mean an increase in the powers of local government, and if the Northam Council is typical of similar bodies in its outlook on Social Justice, our trust will not be misplaced. And the whole business emphasises the sanity of decentralisation. The people on the spot both know more and care more for the welfare of their people. Localised government must necessarily be good government. In this connection I am heartily behind the Premiers in their opposition to the Uniform Tax proposals. Anyone with half an eye can see that the Federal Government's success in this field (and it will succeed) is the first leg in towards the abolition of the
State Parliaments, for he rules who holds the purse. It is not that I am an admirer of the calibre of State Parliaments. It is true that we in Australia are horribly over -governed, and that the State Governments have probably been quite as muddling and in-
dog" complex. The claim itself seems to rest on the efficient as the Federal Governments. But the remedy is not in their abolisomewhat flimsy grounds that "we can take it." Mr. Duff Cooper was at tion, but in reducing their numbers and increasing their powers, while deis pains to point out that "the Empire those of the Federal Governnot militant. Its people never intend- creasing Once ment. the State Parliaments ed that it should be." In this conhave more power we shall have a real nection it might be remarked that mere passivity might argue the moral opportunity of minimising it by transa good deal of it to local govvirtue of fortitude, but it might with ferring equal ease argue fatalism. And while ernment. All this, of course, presimultaneous action to enit is true that the Empire is not mili- supposes population in country towns, tant, it must at the same time be re- courage ports, and on the land generally. And membered that the very existence of Empire argues militancy in the past. all this in turn postulates a revoluAnd the story of how Empires are tionary change of outlook on the funccarved out is not always the most tions of the State, on individual and rights, and indeed on the end glorious in a nation's history or the family surest guarantee of its future peace. It of man. That will be the central diffiof reconstruction-so many culty may be that the English are the to move togreatest people on earth, but greatness things must be made attempt be But the must in the eyes of Christians has remote gether. not to lose to internal connections with humility, which is made "if we are save what we from the external actually the courage of the truth forces enemy." applied to ourselves.
Put an ending to needless spending.
Although some of the best Conservatives in the country regard it as treasonable to discuss the condition of the worker during wartime, I must admit that I found it most inspiriting to read of a recent motion concerning this Municipal matter in the Northam Council. A motion was carried that in future the Council should pay its employees the wage based on the figures supplied by the Government Statistician to the Arbitration Court. It was argued very rightly that unless the basic wage was on the cost of living, some people were bound to suffer from malnutrition. Another Coun cillor stated that a basic wage which allowed only for a man, his wife, and two children was immoral, and that the population had suffered a decline
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