FASCISM AND RELIGION.
[To the Editor of THE SPECrATOR.]
SIR,—Miss Margaret Collins of the B.U.F. attempts officially to rebut the anti-Fascist charge of State supremacy with the usual bluff about " religious toleration for all." This is simply to play upon the popular confusion between pious observances and the religious imperative
No one doubts for a moment that Fascism, like Ithperial Rome of old, would preserve a masterly indifference to the elected routine pieties of the peoples under its sway. On the other hand, it would have reason strongly to resent the spirit of Religion. Religion, which affirms the soul to be inviolate, is in very theory not compatible with submission to despotic political rule ; while in practice a State itself acting without the religious imperative would not withhold decrees insulting the individual conscience. That disposes at once of the flimsy pretence that no antagonism need exist between Fascism and Religion as the latter is understood in Protestant countries. Thus, Mosley's figment about the connexion of Fdscism with " spiritual values " is a patent falsehood. To alienate Liberty is to insult the Conscience of Man. No independent loyalties like those symbolised in the immortal quotation, " Render unto Caesar, &c." could co-exist under Fascism. Fascism stands for a State upheld by military force--; and to that Christians, with their now fuller iealisation of the: implica- tions of the Faith, will no longer submit. ReligiOn, indeed, is the only adequate enemy of Fascists or any other body which appropriates its spirit.
Unhappily, Mr. Gordon Evans is only too right in associating Communists with the Fascist spirit. Both are perfectly willing to ride rough-shod over others' feelings, and to secure their own will regardless of the stable judgement of a dispassionate majority. Communism, however, is less to be despised than that which represents the insane ambition of one man. The impudent mendacity of Mosley's faction is shown at the outset in the anomalous title of " British Union of Fascists and National Socialists," but it is obviously intended to practise on the sensation created in this country by the spectacle of Mussolini and Hitler.—Yours, &c.,
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