The New Freedom
In his stimulating broadcast last Sunday, Sir Stafford Cripps looked beyond the immediate purpose of victory to the wider and deeper purpose by which the nation is moved. He explained the war as a "people's war" of liberation not only from foreign dictators, but from insecurity, want, low standards of living and selfishness ; and pointed out that the process of reconstruction had started already, and ought to be pushed forward now so that in the winning of the war we should also be laying the foundations of peace. The Archbishop of Canterbury evinced the same spirit when he was addressing a Manchester audience on Monday. He was speaking of the obligations as well as the rights which democracy presupposes, and dwelt on the necessity after the war of maintaining the independence of the law courts and the status of the trade unions, of raising the school-leaving age, of improving housing, and securing higher standards of nutrition and conditions of labour. Neither speaker stated precisely through what programme of reforms these ends were to be realised, but Sir Stafford emphasised the need for immediate scientific examination of the means for attaining them in the domestic and international fields. In his view, the treatment of oppressed peoples in foreign countries and social liberation at home are two sides of the same problem, which involves abandonment of the old " Imperialism " in the one case and unfair privilege in the other. This war, as he sees it, has its roots in the impulse which makes for social reform, and no victory will be complete unless it results in the levelling up of the lives of the common people.
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