HOW BRITONS MUST MEET THREATENED PERILS.
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By Sir John Foster Fraser in The Illustrated Sunday Herald of August 16.
"What England needs to-day is a Mussolini!" So say stout patriots with chilly feet. The door prophesies of Comrade A. J. Cook, and his fellow-Communists have set many of them in a tremble. It is a poor compliment to the intelligence of the rest of as to suggest that we have not brains and virility enough to combat and to overthrow the crude creed of communism.
We are in no more need of a Mussolini and at Fascisti brigade than we are of a Lenin and a Soviet Administration or a Lord High Grand Almoner of the Universe from Dallas, Texas, or whatever be the title of the ex-dentist who is now chieftain of the Ku Klux Klan. Fascism of the Latin brand is inverted Bolshevism. Ku Klux Klanism is a scheme to provide many ardent, hundred-per-cent.-red-corpuseled Americans, ridiculously disguised in old-fashioned nightshirts, opportunity for terrorising niggers, Jews, Roman Catholics, and others suspect of deficiency in corpuscular nationality. It is singular that these three "isms" should have flowered at much the same time in such different soils as Russia, Italy, and the United States. They are close relatives. Like other relatives in other circumstances they are antagonistic. Yet they are sincere. But they have one thing in common; they use terrorism and brutality to attain their purpose. They are undemocratic and un-British. We do not want any of them.
"British Fascists."
They have a tremendous admiration for that great Roman, Signor Mussolini, as all of us have for any man who is brave, clear-sighted, who knows precisely what he wants and proceeds to get it. They know that Mussolini was a Socialist. But when Italy seemed to be tumbling to political ruin, when sedition and rebellion infested the air, when it looked as though the country would sink into industrial anarchy and the wild men dance gleefully in celebration of another land taking the great plunge toward social revolution, a great light shone upon Mussolini. He was converted. He became a super-patriot. The migration of his personality electrified millions of Italians and swung hundreds of thousands of fiery-tongued Socialists from their old faith. His heel came down with a crunch on all Communists with piebald internationalism. He saved Italy. He was acclaimed the saviour of his native land. The Fascist movement was pledged at whatever cost to resist tyranny. It is, therefore, not difficult to understand that there are English men and English women, afraid that the Cook party is going to boss us, who sigh for an English Mussolini. But do they really want England to be as Italy is to-day under the Fascists? I don't.
Freedom Killed.
It is just here that we begin to find the relationship between Fascism and Bolshevism. Most of us were glad when in 1917 the peaceful revolution happened in Russia, though it was at an awkward moment in the throes of the Great War. We were glad at the passing of the old Czarist autocracy with its repression, its cruelty, its Siberian exiles, and we were proud that the voice of democratic Russia was to be heard. We lauded Kerensky. We welcomed Bolshevism, which meant the rights of the majority, because it seemed to synchronize with our ideas of democracy. Then power was seized by a few. Nicholas II. went and Lenin came. Under the regime of the Soviet worse crimes were committed than in the bad old days of the autocracy. The Bolshevists wanted freedom; but the instant they got it they killed freedom. They cried aloud for the liberty of the press; then they would allow no liberty of the press. Every crime that the Bolshevists protested against they have committed.
We accept the fact that Mussolini and the Italian Fascists, grinding to pulp the ugly head of communism, were animated by the highest kind of patriotism. They wanted to protect Italy from red tyranny. Yet what is going on in Italy now must fill with pain every English lover of that country. The Fascists are holding the whip handle, and are running the country with no regard for the rights of others. Free expression of opinion is not allowed. Newspapers that dare criticise the Mussolini Administration are ruthlessly suppressed. By gerrymandering the electoral law the Italian Parliament is no longer a true reflex of the views of the Italian people as a whole. This charge is made that the Fascists have been guilty of foul murder of at least one member of the Italian Parliament who was too outspoken.
It is not only the Socialists who are trampled upon; every one of liberal thought who dares say that Fascism has usurped undue power is in danger. It was only the other day that Signor Orlando, who nobly served his country for many years as Prime Minister, resigned his seat in the Chamber and left Italy because he is convinced that "in Italian public life to-day there is no room for a man of my party and my convictions." And Orlando is a patriot.
One has only to read Mussolini's speeches, and understand that, while the support of other parties is acceptable, nobody but the Fascists shall have any authority in decision. Here we find a parallel between Bolshevism and Fascism. Each was born to save its country from tyranny, and then, having achieved its purpose, proceeded with relentless determination to impose another kind of tyranny. We want to, and will, save Britain from any Communist menace, but we do not desire to follow the methods of the Italian Fascists.
Ku Klux Klan.
It is passing strange that so many causes, starting with an excellent object, degenerate and proceed to do the very things they were created to condemn. The most striking instance is the power exercised in the United States by the Ku Klux Klan, a blend of buffoonery and high-tempered patriotism. The association numbers millions of Americans. It is a revival of the terrorism exercised by ghost-like draped horsemen who after the Civil War—when the negroes were freed from serfdom and inclined to be uppish— put the fear of the devil into the hearts of the darkies who foolishly got it into their heads that they were just as good as the white folk. America would stand before the world as the land of equality, tolerance, and freedom. Good!
After the Great War, when coloured people from the southern States had migrated to the northern industrial regions, and became objectionable because they refused to go back to Dixie Land, and began to talk about the way United States coloured troops had given their lives in France for Uncle Sam, it was felt necessary to teach them that there was to be "no damned nonsense about equality." So the Ku Klux Klan, which had never died, revived, and became active. It was considered also that there were too many Jews in America. They exercised too great an influence. So the Ku Klux Klan started to teach the Jews "where they got off."
The husky whisper spread that the power of the Roman Catholics in politics was detrimental to the real welfare of the United States. The ban of the Ku Klux Klan was laid upon them. Hundreds and tens of thousands of fervent Americans joined this association to save America from darkies, aliens, and what is regarded by millions as an alien faith. America was to be for the Americans. War was declared on the "Reds" and folk of immediate foreign origin— Dagoes and Waps and Polaks, and what is often referred to as "the scum of Europe." The mission of the Ku Klux Klan is to clean up America.
Brutal Methods.
One appreciates the aims of Americans to make their country worthy of its highest ideals. What boggles many of us on this side of the Atlantic are the methods. The Ku Klux Klan is a secret society, with weird passwords, and the officers have heaven-resounding titles which would make even an Englishman laugh; but it is tremendously serious, and everybody on duty is conspicuously in disguise, and the main weapon of making itself felt is terrorism. The law is against it, but in some places it is so powerful that it defies the law. If anybody is objectionable, the Ku Klux Klan has ways of making him wish he had never been born, the least of which is "running him out of the town." Being murdered is quite a common mishap in the United States, and some of the cruellest murders have been ascribed to the Ku Klux Klan. No doubt the spirit of patriotism is behind the organization. But the methods are reckless and brutal. While many millions of excellent Americans belong to it, many more millions of other excellent Americans are alarmed at its lawlessness and its power to dictate.
Our Real Liberty.
As everybody who has travelled extensively knows, this Britain is the only country where there is anything approaching real liberty. The clear-headedness and right-heartedness of the British people have demonstrated to the world that the Soviet is not our idea of a democratic system of government. But the timorous and the pessimistic, always wailing that the Government should do more to protect us from impending disaster, should try to avoid rushing to the other extreme and securing a fictitious calm by repression. All aliens who hate our country, sow dissension among us, and endeavour to dynamite our constitutional system of administration should be cleared out. But let the others, our own countrymen, talk. We who are constitutionalists are in a bad way if we have not got arguments sound enough to upset the contentions of the Communists. Breaking up meetings is just hooliganism, though we may call it by another name.
The satire of the situation is that the socialists and their left wing neighbours, the Communists, while resenting any check on their own oratory, are the principal offenders in yelling down those who disagree with them. When I was Parliamentary candidate at Leicester Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's supporters would bawl for an hour, not in opposition to anything I said, because they would not listen, but simply because they did not want to hear anybody who was opposed to "Mac." One of the stock arguments at street-corner meetings is the wrongness of a mere handful of men controlling the destinies of England. That is arguable. But with unconscious humour the same speakers are all in favour of another handful of men, representing sectional interests, holding up the entire trade of the country in order to secure by blackmail what cannot be secured by constitutional methods, an increase in wages. It is only by letting these folk talk that the rest of the nation receives its education concerning their real aims. We know that they screech like scalded chimpanzees when some of their harshness is applied to themselves. Let the Socialist air their panaceas. Let the grubby Communists tell us of their plans to wreck society. British people in the mass are not so bankrupt in commonsense as to be deluded by venomous flapdoodle. I have faith in the intelligence of the working man.
The Way of Safety.
We do not want the weapons of the Ku Klux Klanists of the Fascists or the Bolshevists—an unholy trinity of terrorists. We have grave problems to solve. But we do not solve them by suffering folk who have fanatic weird, and vindictive theories. We would accomplish things by giving more time to devising remedies for our national diseases and less time to clamouring for the suppression of those who vehemently and critically, and with small thought for the general rights of the community, direct our attention to them. One of my favourite old writers declares "In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. But that is the way we must tread if we are sincere in seeking the regeneration of England.
Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), Wednesday 7 October 1925, page 18
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