FASCISM, COMMUNISM, DEMOCRACY.

 "Though words are very beautiful things," Mussolini has declared, "rifles, machine-guns, ships, aeroplanes and cannons are more beautiful things still."

A NEW world has come into being for which war is frankly a postulate; the measure of all things,and in which the soldier lays down the law and rules the roost. "Every human and social activity is justified only when it aids preparation for war." These are terrible words.

By F. V. COLEMAN

WHOSE words are they? They are quoted from the "Deutsche Wehr," the professional journal of Hitler's Officer-Corps. To those who have been reared in the traditions of freedom the words are a challenge — a challenge which, we may thank what gods we still happen to believe in, is being taken up by thoughtful people in those countries where thinking is still not a crime.
What is this force which is remaking the world to such a bloody pattern of torn bodies and shattered ideals? To understand it is the first step to combating it.
To those whose bewildered brains are searching for a key to the apparent degeneration of civilisation comes an apt book from the pen of Dr. C. E. M. Joad, Head of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology of Birkbeck College, University of London.
The author has written so much of political and social problems that his work is quite familiar to the student, but not, more is the pity, to the man in the street.
His present book, rather clumsily entitled; "Guide to the Philosophy of Morals of Polities," is a clear exposition and comparison of the principles of Fascism, Communism and Democracy.
Fascism, he points out, is claimed by its exponents to be an attitude to life as well as a theory of the State; a temper of mind no less than a conception of government. It is not merely a repudiation of Socialism and Democracy, it is a renascence of the spirit of man.
Interesting testimony of that renascence was the loudly cheered remark of a Nazi speaker at a public meeting, "Whenever I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my Browning." (not the poet).
Intolerance, in short, is the keynote of Totalitarianism. Both Fascism and Communism are philosophies in action and philosophies in action become philosophies of compulsory conformity.
Their theories will not admit that the individual may possess ideals as an individual and recognise only such as are comprised in his loyalties as a citizen.
"To these generalisations," declares Dr. Joad, "there is in the contemporary world one exception, namely, the philosophy, if philosophy it can be called, of Individualism, and the system of government which is usually found associated with Individualism, namely Democracy."
Thus, then, we find the world's thought in two sharply defined and hostile camps, the one maintaining that the individual exists for the State and the other that the State exists for the individual. Into one or other of those camps every intelligent human being must sooner or later be recruited.
"The view that individual liberty and development should be subordinated to State convenience is common to all forms of Fascism. Thus the advocates of British Fascism, comparatively undeveloped as it is, are already insisting in their official organ that Fascism stands for the cessation of present political life, and in this sense for the suppression of political self-expression."
 This is England, the traditional home of Democracy.
Attacks upon the right of self-expression are becoming so common in this country, as in most others, that we may well fear that we are headed towards this Fascist ideal; for Fascism does not like words — that are too apt to serve as the vehicles of thought.
All depending, of course, on the angle from which they are viewed.
"Communism," says the author, "is only partly an ethical, only partly a political doctrine. It is also a metaphysical philosophy, a theory of the nature of reality, a theory of knowledge, and a theory of economics."
He explains that the ultimate aim is the elimination altogether of the control of the State, so that citizens will conduct their affairs with the utmost possible freedom— that the dictatorship of the proletariat will in some mysterious way be liquidated in a rising tide of intelligent liberty. With this he does not agree.
"The study of history suggests that dictatorships from their very nature become, as they grow older, not less, but more extreme; not less, but more sensitive to and impatient of criticism. Developments in the contemporary world support this view.
"Yet the theory of Communism postulates precisely the reverse of what history teaches, and maintains that at a given moment a dictatorial Government will be willing to reverse the engines, to relinquish power, and, having denied liberty, to concede it. Neither history nor psychology affords any warrant for this conclusion."
Dr. Joad is frankly a democrat and in his frankness he has formulated what might well be the credo of every democrat, which is:
"That the individual is an end in himself; that he is, indeed the only thing which is an end in itself; that the State is nothing apart from the individuals who comprise it; that it has no value except such as is realised in their lives; and that its raison d'etre is the establishment of those conditions, mental and spiritual as well as physical, in which individuals can develop their personalities and achieve such happiness as belongs to their natures.
"If, then, we are to speak at all of 'the good of the State' and the expression, harmless in itself, is one in which the experience of the last twenty years should have taught us to see danger— we should never do so without reminding ourselves that the State's good is entirely dependent on, that it is entirely constituted by, the quality and happiness of the lives of the individuals who are members of it."
It would be well for the potential dictators in our midst to ponder on these words and also on the fact that they are finding a growing body of public opinion to support them. And it would be wise for those of us who take our political responsibilities lightly to take this passage to heart also:
"We must not give men irresponsible power, not only because it corrupts them and they abuse it, but also because they do not experience the effects of their use of it; they do not, in other words, have to live under the laws they make.
"It follows, first, that in the last resort only those must be entrusted with the making of the laws who have to obey them; secondly, that those who have to obey them should have the opportunity of altering them, through the right of public criticism and the ventilation of grievances; thirdly, that holders of power should be elected for a period and called upon to give an account of their stewardship at the end of that period."
This is the faith and the right of the democrat. "For centuries our ancestors fought for this right against power, against privilege and against the passive obstruction of vested interests," says Dr. Joad.
"Eventually they triumphed, winning for all men the right to share in determining the sort of community in which they should live, and the sort of laws by which their lives should be governed. "If we value this right, it follows that it is our duty to see that we do not through shortsightedness — for the benefits of democracy are long term benefits— or impatience— for the workings of democracy are slow — or indifference — for democracy makes no spectacular appeal to the imagination — throw away the heritage which our ancestors bequeathed to us."

Sun (Sydney, NSW :  1938, ) http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229133597