1938-03-15 — Page 22

HE HONGKON

Taken for granted..

W

I-DEMOCRACY

"HAT does democracy mean? It is not easy to say. So many people have defined it, praised it, and attacked it, that the word is like a hat that has lost its shape because everybody wears it.

'To-day so many attack it." Why? It is said that the people are stupid, ignorant and uninterested in politics; that they do not want to think about public affairs, stul less to decide them; that all they ask of the State is that it should tell. them what to think and, what to do, and provide them with 'chóugh money to go to football matches, the movies and the dogs. Leadership, in fact, in public life and casy amusement in private!

I do not believe a word of it. Democracy rests upon two principles. The first, that only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches; the second, that the wearer should, therefore, choose his shoe.

That he may on occasion choose badly is not to the point. The point is that he cannot allow others to choose for him. For one thing the teaching of history has made plain, it is that human beings are not angelle enough to be entrusted with power over the lives and liberties of other human beings, particularly. over those who offend them by criticism or opposition.

For, gaining power with the best intentions, men are. It seems, corrupted by its exercise and proceed to use it in the interests not of the community, but of themselves, treating their subjects not as ends, but as means to the gratification of their own'ambitions.

Twentieth century human nature is a loose, untidy, ample sort of growth, full of unacknowledged needs and unsuspected oddities. And just as a foot which has corns, cannot, without unhappiness to its owner, be thrust into a perfectly shaped shoe, so a community of imperfect human beings cannot, without unhappiness, be thrust into the strait-jacket of perfectly con- ceived laws.

We must, then, cut our legislative coat according to the cloth of human nature, which means that we must cut it for ourselves. For centuries our ancestors fought for this right against power, against privilege and against the passive obstruction of vested interests. Eventually they triumphed and won for all men the right to have a voice in determining the sort of community in which they should live, and framing the laws by which they should be governed.

It is our duty to see to it that we do not through khort-sighted- ness for the benefits of democracy are long-term benefits-or impatience for the workings of democracy are slow-or indif- ference-for democracy makes no spectacular appeal to the imagination--throw away the heritage which our ancestors bequeathed to us.

**

Y

II-LIBERTY

French 'OU SEE," said Macaulay, when

pamphlet in praise of liberty was shown to him, in England we take all that for granted." Macaulay was speaking over a hundred years ago. but his words are as true to-day as when he spoke them; per- haps even truer, for we have enjoyed another hundred of liberty.

Liberty is a good thing, but its enjoyment, is negative, rather than positive.

*

years

When we have it, we do not realise that we have it: we realise It, arid realise that it is a good thing, only when we are deprived We normally of it. In this sense liberty is like health or air. value health. only when we have lost it, or, having lost it, have Just regained it, when the memory of illness is still vividly with us.

-

Similarly with air; we value it only if it is taken from us, when we value it so much that we proceed to die, unless it is restored to us. So men normally value liberty only when it is denied to them; but its denial is a denial of all that makes lie worth living, so that the spirit of the prisoner cries out for liberty, and again for liberty, as the lungs of the man who is choking cry out for air; for liberty is the air of the spirit. If men and women are not free to think as they please, they lose their title to humanity; for it is by our power of thinking that we are chiefly distinguished from the beasts.

The man who may at any moment be arrested without war- rant, imprisoned without trial and left to languish in prison at the pleasure of the Government, lives under the shadow of n fear which takes all the sweetness from his life. For men live in society that they may have security, and there is no security where liberty depends upon the flat of unchecked authority. Nor is it an answer to say that the welfare of the State demands

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By

ELEGRAPH. JITURSDAY, MARCID 15, 1938,

CE M JOAD

Who here discusses the menace to the three things in our daily lives that We treasure' most,

the suppression of certain individual freedoms; the freedom, for example, to criticise the Clovernment. For the welfare of the State is nothing apart from the good of the citizens who compose it..

It is no doubt true that a State whose citizens are compelled to go right is more emcient than one whose citizens are free to go wrong. But what then? To sacrifice freedom in the interests of efficiency, is to sacrifice what confers upon human beings their humanity.

It is no doubt easy to govern a flock of sheep; but there is no credit in the governing, and, if the sheep were born as men, no virtue in the sheep.

W

III-INDIVIDUALITY

HAT is a man for, or what, as the Greeks would have put it, is the true end of man? We do not, the fact must be admitted, know. But there is one thing upon which that part of mankind which still accepts Christ's teaching is agreed: it is that man's "end" includes at least the maximum development of his personality.

We expect it, in other words, of a man that he should develop his faculties to their utmost capacity, utilise his powers to the full, and realise all that he has it in him to be; that he' should, in short, become as completely as possible himself.

And since he cannot do these things alone, it is the business of the community to help him to do them. It is, then, the business of the community to make the good life possible for all its citizens: riot any sort of life, but the sort of life that seems to men individually to be good. The

Now the principle of individualism insists that each citizen must be able to form his ideals, to choose his way of life for him- selt. Stubbornly the citizen of a democracy will resist the right of any to impose upon him his way of life from above.

The purpose of our training is to enable us to fight for fighting is the duty and chief glory of man. He who does not want to fight is not it to live." This announcement made and repeated daily by hundreds at one of the new Nazl educational establishments, admirably lustrates the conception of the imposition of the "good life" from above. The good life, in fact, consists of fighting, whether the individual likes it or not.

Now, it is the essence of individualism that no man should be in a position to dictate to another how he should live, or what Ideals he should set before himself:

And if no man, then also no form of government. The State, then, is not entitled to impose its conception of the good life upon its citizens. All that it may do is to establish the con- ditions in which the living of the good life by its citizens is possible.

One government insists that a citizen is a drop of blood in an ocean of racial purity; another that he is a cog in a proletarian machine; another that he is an ant in a heap of ants. Individu- alism asserts, on the contrary, that he is a soul; possibly immortal, existing primarily in and for himself, and not for the sake of anything other than himself.

I do not know how to prove this; but to deny it is to blaspheme against the dignity of man and degrade film to the

level of a slave.

HONGKONG AND SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION.

Authorised Capital

$50,000,000 Issued and Billy Paid-Up 20,000,000 Reserve Funds

Strung

********* £ 0,500,000 Hongkong Currency Reserva $10,000,000 Reserve Lability of Proprietors $20,000,000 BEAD OFFICE —HONGKONO.

'BOARD OF DIRECTORS

TE. Pearce, "E#14 N

Chairman.!

Hon. Mr. J. J. Paterson. Deputy Chairman.

J. R. Massan, Esq. J.K. Bousfield, Esq. A. 11. Compton, Esq. G. Miskin, Esq. Hon, Mr. B. H. Dodwell K. B. Morrison, Esq. Hon. Mr. M. T. Johnson A. L. Shields, Esti.

Bir Vendeltur M. Grayburn, CHEF MANAGER.

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Incorporated by Royal Charter 1852 HEAD OFFICE-LONDON.

38 Bishopsgais, E.CZ. Paid-up Capital ........... #3,000,000 Reserve Liability of Proprietors £3,000,000 Reserve Fund .................................... £3,000,000 MANCHESTER DRANCH:

12 Mosley St, Manchester.

AGENCIES AND BILANCHES:

Alor Blar Ipol Amrilans

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Current Accounts opened and Fixed Deposits received for one year or shorter periods at rates which will be quoted on application.

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BANK. Capital (fully paid-up) Yum.000.000 -Y,123,000,000 Resorve Fund TVARKAN

HEAD OFF108----YOKORAKA, Pal Branches and Aganaija at

Hongkong Takroon Ranking

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YOKOHAMA Current Acoustnte opened in Lona), Cur rency and Flood Deposit received for DAG FEAT OF shortär #period. 14 Loo and other eurrenales în terena which will be quoted on', application, trunk

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Berlin"

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NATIONAL ANTHEM :

NEW RULE

SOUTHERN COMMAND

orders recently issued give special instructions to Army bands about playing the National Anthem when civilians are singing it. The orders say:

"With reference to King's Regulations, 1935, it has occurred that frequently when Army bands are used. to accompany the public during the singing of the National Anthem, a differ- ence is apparent in the notation of the last line of the Anthem.

"It is the usual civilian prac- tice to sing only two notes in the melody on the first word of the last line, both of them as quavers, whereas the Army

Military Band Style

band version is three notes, one quaver and two semi-quavers,

two "When these

versions.

unmusical combined the result is and unpleasant, and to obtain uni-

All Together Now

Kingt

ATC

formity It has been decided that in future when Army bonds are playing the National Anthem In clrcum- general stances when either the public or civilian choirs, etc, may be expected to join in the singing, bands will conform to the civilian practice and play only two quavérs on the first word of the last line."

CANTON AGENTS

for

Hongkong Griegraph.

WM. FARMER & Co. Victoria Hotel Building.

Shameen, Canton. Tel. 13501..

BURNS PHILP LINE

Passenger & Freight Service To

AUSTRALIA

M.Y.

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sailing 15th MARCH

at Midnight

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First Class to Sydney:-

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Tel. 28031

P. G O. Bldg.

ENYK

TELEPHONE 30291.

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Titibu Mánu (From Kobe) ..Sat., 9th April Taiyo Mar (From Kabe) Mon., 25th April Seattle & Vancouver (Starte from Koba)..

Hikawa Baru

Now York via Panama.

+Kelyo Maru

Mon, 28th March

.Sat., 9th. Apr.

South America (West Coast) via Japan, Honolulu,

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London, Marseilles, Antwerp & Rotterdam.

Torukuni Maru

Halasan Maru

Harina Maru” “

Fri, 26th March

Sat., 9th April

..Sat., 23rd April

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Daker Maru............

„Frit,--8th-April...............

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Neptuna (Via Saigon & Porta) Wed., 16th March. Atsuta Maru.......

... Sat., 26th March

Bombay, via Singapore, Penang & Colombo,

+Toyama Marn

Calcutta via Singapore, Penang & Rangoon,

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.Sat., 26th March

.....Fri., 25th March

Kobo & Yokohama. (Omitting Shanghai)

Kitano Maru

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Kashima Baru

.Fri., 18th March -Sat., 26th March Sat., 9th April General Passenger Agents in the Orient for the CUNARD WHITE STAR LINE. *Joint Passenger Agents for Gibb Livington Co.

THE TAIKOO DOCKYARD & ENGINEERING COMPANY

OF HONGKONG, LIMITED.

BUILDERS OF ALL CLASSES OF SHIPS.

BUILDERS OF RECIPROCATING STEAM ENGINES. BUILDERS OF MARINE AND LAND BOILERS. BUILDERS OF TURBINE MACHINERY.

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