RELIGION AND DICTATORSHIP
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Snt,L-Mr. Lloyd asks whether I have an answer- to the pre- tensions of dictatorship. I am afraid I have no more than a prejudice against it, like many other people. I think it could be successfully' argued that we should be more efficient for defence under a dictatorship (especially if the dictator were someone like Mr: "Churchill) and that many social schemes to the advantage of the economically discontented could be more expeditiously carried Mit, but it would involve surrender of liberties that we have a prejudice in favour of maintaining.- There is an inertia which prevents drastic change in all corn-' fortable populations. This was overcome in Russia; Italy and Germany by the convulsions resultant from the War. They were remoulded by minorities when they Were molten. We should like to have their efficiencies, social and martial, Without paying the price they paid, first in confusion and then in liberty. Mr. Lloyd objects to dictators on religious grounds ; west people, I think, on grounds of a prejudice in favour of accustomed ways of living. People born under dictatorship would not feel that way about it. We had our closeSt approxiination to it during the Wars Efficiencies were
gained, liberties curtailed. We went back again, like an old piano, that has been brought for a brief season to concert pitch. We -hate being at concert pitch continually. That I think is the objection most Englishmen have to dictatorship. I doubt if it would necessarily interfere with anyone being a Christian. Did Mr. Lloyd find it more difficult during the War period ? I do not see why it should have been. All govern- ments lead the people in war from time to time, or claim the right to—not dictators only. I gather that in Germany there are multitudes of Catholics and Protestants who do not find any inconvenience in being also supporters of Hitler. I think the saying of Dr. Johnson on Determinism might be applied to Dictatorship : Every reason is for it and every (British and Fascist) instinct against it.—Yours faithfully,
Previous page
