ACROSS THE FRONTIERS [To the Editor of Tun SPECTATOR.] Slu,—I
have not seen any refbrence in your columns to one aspect of the International Conference of Social workers lately held in London, an aspect which is particularly inter- esting at the present time. Before the Conference proper an International Summer School on British Social Work was attended by about 200 foreign members of the Conference. During the organised and unorganised discussions which took place in that week a remarkable fact emerged ; that a sense of corporate responsibility for all social evils of all countries, or rather far the welfare of all peoples, without exclusion, already existed among social workers of different nationalities. They all seemed to feel that their own work in their particular part of the world was only a part of a whole for which they were jointly responsible.
In the week of the Conference which followed a further
discovery was made, and that was the common attitude among delegates from democratically governed countries-1 an attitude of passionate devotion to the ideals of free per- sonality. None of us will soon forget the tremendous applause which broke from that vast audience in support of Miss; Fairfield's plea for the protection of personal values from the forces which menaced it at the present time. I think many of us wished to show the Germans present that such values could command as much devotion as they expressed for their government and leader. One could not help wondering why such a body of people, including many of the most humane and most experienced people in all countries, could not be enabled to express this solidarity of ideals and responsibility in some permanently effective way. They seemed far more representative of the creative public opinion in their own countries than most politicians.
So often it seems that what the world most needs at the
moment is already there if it could only be recognised and, as it were, put into wider circulation. We criticise the mechanical methods of the Totalitarian State, but if we are oppose it with a power equal to its own surely we must develop a system of free communication and joint respon- sibility between groups at present working in isolation and to too great an extent in watertight compartments.—Yours; &c., ALICE M. CAMERON. New house, Sennen Cove, Cornwall.
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