LETTERS Pain leading to prosperity
From Mr Allan Massie Sir: May I make some observations on Daniel Hannan's smug and superficial account of the 'strange death of Christian Democracy' ('Neither Christian nor Demo- cratic', 26 February)? He asks whether 'the space left by Christian Democracy' will be filled by the likes of Haider or by `respectable conservatives such as the British Tories, the Bavarian CSU. . . . ' The Bavarian CSU is itself a Christian Demo- crat party, more Catholic, indeed Bavaria being what it is — than the CDU, with which it has been allied.
The CDU, he tells us, is suffering its low- est poll rating ever, at 29 per cent. The British Tories, who, he tells us, must offer `a legitimate alternative' to Haiderism, hover around their lowest poll ratings ever; just like the CDU, they are discredited.
He tell us, stuffily, that the economic doc- trines of Christian Democracy 'were informed by the principles laid down in the 1893 encyclical Rerum novarum: high wages, dialogue between employers and workers, and so on'. Is he suggesting that low wages and absence of dialogue between employers and workers are to be commended?
The 'belief that the end justifies the means has always been central to the Chris- tian Democratic Weltanschauung. The won- der is that voters put up with it for so long.'
Dear me, these wicked (Catholic) Conti- nentals again. It may be reprehensible, but their belief is common to every political party, whether on the Right or Left. It was the justification of Margaret Thatcher's economic and fiscal policies of the early Eighties. High levels of unemployment and the destruction of a great part of our manu- facturing industry were the means towards the end: the economic regeneration of Britain and the prosperity we now enjoy.
Allan Massie
Thirladean House, Selkirk
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