•
*
́THE CHINA MAIL, MARCH 5, 1941. ·
CHINA MAIL
`-WINDSOR HOUSE
COMMUNIST
FRICTION IN CHINA
Absence of the Com- munist delegates from the sessions of the Peo-
ple's Political Council in
Chungking serves one useful
purpose. It ex- poses what many of the closest sympathisers of Free China have been ut pains trying to hide: That the essential points of dis- agreement between the Government and the Communists go deeper than it has been comfort- able to admit.
That is
not to suggest that the difficulties cannot even;
yet be ironed out. There! is one solid issue on which! both Chungking and Yenan can agree, the vital necessity of continued re- sistance to Japanese ag- gression.
SCUTTLED !
BULGARIA
47
IN THE TRUE NAZI TRADITION
For
"Crusade
Civilisation"
Dr. Esine Wingfield Stratford in; they hopefully assume, will be at that it is not the Nazi regime from his book, "Crusade for Civilisa- the permanent beck and call of which we are fighting to deliver
the League politicians. tion" (Routledge, 7s. 6d.) shows
"The
Page T
Jess than that of any foreign oc-
cupation, is it too much to hope. that the proved failure of this tyranny even to justify itself in its own terms of military success, will produce a revulsion of Ger- man sentiment which, if we know how to play up to it, will cause a mighty renaissance of German civilisation along with a renounce- ment of Prussianism, super-Prus- sianism, and all their works?
The author is in no doubt, hoy- ever, that the Prussian spirit must be crushed. He' writes:--
"One thing is clear. Even if we should win the war, the peace will be hopelessly lost unless, by one means or another. It is possible to give Germany back her soul, and to woe or persuade her to for sake the bondage of her present tyratuy for membership of, and communion with, the Common- wealth of free nations. For that no sacrifice will be too great, und no measure of forgiveness exces-
sive.
"What will remain to be dono with Prussia will present the hard- est problem of all. To deny the possibility of her ultimate con- version would be to despair of human nature. And the really great Prussian qualities of de- votion and self-sacrifice may be as powerful in the service of good as that of evil.
"But to change a spirit that has persisted and grown continuousl for centuries is easier said that done. And until we have plain - and practical proof of the Prus- sian being for, instead of against. civilisation, he must for his own good, and everyone else's safety. have his claws cut, and his jawi muzzled.
There Must Be No Totalitarian Regime
"No principle of sane freedom commands us to let a dangerous wild beast loose on the world. And
to hand over the natives of tropi- cal colonies against their wills, to Germany, but that the German the tender mercies of a Power people itself is the enemy, and
pros and cons of such that Hitlerism has to be accepted wedded openly to the principles may furnish a good as the permanent sub-conscious and practice of tyranny, would schemes enough evening's entertainment faith and religion of every Ger-
be to touch a lower depth of crime for a debating society, or fill out man, which only force, continu- a lively pamphlet, but to wait till ously applied, can prevent fromi
even than of lunacy. one of them whatever its merits coming to the surface? in the abstract-has the remotest
"There must be no
sort of chance of materialising, is to wait "This belief, which would leave Totalitarian regime; no gestapo, for the Greek calends. The most no ground for hope except in the Jewbaiting, or concentration of the sort that any practical man extermination or perpetual helo- will dare to envisage is the put-tage of the entire German people, camps; no militarisation of youth ting together again, and perhaps is the most suicidal form of pro- or gangs of storm troopers. a certain reinforcement, of the puganda. broken - down
The
Between conflicting ar- guments from both sides as to the merits of the dispute, there is clear suggestion that the faults,
such as they are, do not lie entirely on one side or the
other. That in its turn
implies the necessity for a spirit of give and take if that present-day "Imperialisms" are the totalitarian nations and a happy solution of an un-
that the ambitions of all peoples fortunate development is should be free association by the tie of mutual consent. In compar- to be found.
ing a commonwealth to the League Generalissimo Chiang of Nations, the author writes:— Kai-shek came to a work-
"Our world commonwealth of have something ing arrangement with the the future must
more to bind
principles of freedom do not ex- it together than a Communists because he
mere formal constitution like that
"Even those of us who have not tend to allowing gangsters to or- yet travelled in Southern or Wes-ganise their rackets in peace, or realised that it was only of the League. It is not even cer- "This time, perhaps, it may be tern Germany, those who are too train up their children in crooks'
got to work, given the spirit to young to look back to the time by a supreme united effort
The British Work it. But given that spirit, the when leaders constitution at all.
of British culture colleges." League, or Commonwealth, may could look to Germany as a spiri- that China could hope to Commonwealth gets วท well be trusted, at a pinch, to dispense tual home, ought to know better
In his Epilogue Dr. Wingfield resist Japan successfully. enough, and far better than the with any machinery at all, and to than to speak of the countrymen Stratford sums up the policy and
us a gentleman's agree-of Goethe, of Beethoven, of League, without anything of the There had to be an end to sort, unless we are to speak of the time there must be none of the species of barbarians
ment between gentlemen. But this Durer,. of Martin
ideals of his "Crusade for Civili- Luther, as a
and Huns, sation." all fratricidal strife. But occasional imperial conferences as opposite sort to wreck it. Mem- or as having, within the span of bership must be confined to those one mortal life, become Prussian- a sort of token organisation. the price paid for this na-
who have the objects of the as-ised past praying for. sociation at heart, and in whose tional unity it is now con- "It is, I would submit, an en- good faith it is reasonably pos- tended is the danger of tirely false idea, and one of which the Commonwealth is a standing Communist influence disproof, that international unity spreading over an ever- cannot be effected without some sort of super-State machinery, or widening area. It is being what our ancestors would have said, in fact, that the fear called a social contract. There are even thinkers like Mr. H. G. of Communist expansion wells, of whom one cannot speak in North China is the without the deepest respect, who will not be content without a
tain that it will need to have a
most disturbing factor in world cabinet, with ministers and the mind of the Central departments all complete. Government. But it would be China's greatest tra- gedy if an
irremediable
*
Geneva.
sible to confide.
machinery
at
"We peoples of the British Com- monwealth," he writes, "at last know the strength as well as the "Our victory will be no victory evil, of this devilry that has come unless we can confirm it by get- Ling the best part of the German up against us, and I do not think worth, is in trusting wholly, or as stead of repeating our hideous
"My own bellef, for what it is people back for civilisation, in- there is any one who doubts of our
as possible, to the team blunder, after the much
last war, of own strength to meet it and, in spirit of spontaneous and free driving them back into the arms due time, to save our souls alive, cooperation between free peoples. of Prussia. For it was neither ori- whatever happens to our bodies or Get on with the good work of ginal sin nor the love of tyranny civilisation; get into the habit of for its own sake that made the working together, and having tast- German feel that Prussia Indis- edof its benefits, let practice make pensable to him, but simply be perfect.
cause he had come to feel that nothing but the iron of Prussian discipline, entering his soul, could save him from remaining, what he had been for centuries, the hope less victim of his own incapacity to cumbing.
No Ground For Hope
"It was the habit of the Spar- tans, the Nazis of classical Greece," "There are others who want to says Dr. Wingfield Stratford, in split occurred at this form what they duphemistically his chapter Whither Germany," term a world police, and will to declare a perpetual state of stage in her united front. really consist of a polyglot army, war on their helats, just as the or Pretorian guard, with navy Germans do, by Implication, on and air force attached, which will Jews, Poles, Czechs, and all such. hold a disarmed world at its But are we not coming very close mercy, and whose commanders, to the same thing, when we argue # 117&data b) WAVESTOC
And nothing would serve Japan's interests 'better.
264 01 06 FOT
our possessions.
very.
"It has penetrated the depths of our common conscious- ness that our defeat now will be the defeat of mankind, the death- sentence on life itself; and that de- feat is therefore, and hes got to be unthinkable,
•
"Enough that, we have only our the own souls to rely on now Kingdom within us, a stronger und deeper certainty than that of our enemies. We are not going to inil."
Proved Failure Of
This is an interesting book' full. The Tyrant.. of constructive suggestions and discriminating, thinking people "Now that he has had éxperi- will find in it'much that will help ence, in his own daily life, of a them to face the problems of our tyranny more crushing and merel--time, says Public Opinion,