LORD BALDWIN AND DEMOCRACY
By R. A. SCOTT-JAMES
L01W BALDWIN has always been at his best when stating the broad human issues which lie at the back of statesmanship, describing in terms of morality or senti- ment the values which determine the ordinary man's judge- ment of politics. Many of his discourses in this vein might be taken as models for the lay preacher ; but none of them, I think, have been more successful than the three grave, sincere and lucid lectures which he has just delivered at Toronto University. He praises the commoner virtues of the Englishman without complacency. He considers the dangers to which democracy is exposed by the dictators without forgetting the dangers to which it is exposed from within. He knows that democracy has in it the "seed of dissolution" as well as of life, and that it is required to become as efficient as the totalitarian States in mechanical progress without losing its freedom, to resist tyranny with- out becoming itself enslaved. The democracies can only succeed "if the spiritual effort they put forth is greater than, and in control of, their material effort." He appeals to "the moralised solidarity of the group under the leader- ship of the citizen who is deemed wisest and best and who can be dismissed," as contrasted with "the mechanical solidarity of the. herd under the leadership of a dictator, omnipotent and infallible." These are sage reflections ; and though his own Government did not always illustrate his maxim that "to act is easier than to reflect," one is driven to observe how grave a loss the present House of Commons suffers through the rarity among ministerial speeches of the signs of inner grace so spontaneously mani- fested by Lord Baldwin.
It is worthy of note that he fully realises the danger which democracy runs from the very necessity of strengthen- ing itself against the threatened attacks of dictators. The latter have many obvious advantages for the achievement of their ends. They can order and organise the mass activi- ties of the country, social, industrial, financial, and military. By means of Press, radio and cinema they can doctor news and inculcate beliefs. Through regimentation and blind obedience they can direct all the forces of the State towards any end proposed by their policy. Far-reaching plans which in a democracy would be the subject of prolonged controversy can be carried through swiftly and with mechanised effi- ciency in a totalitarian State. When Hitler issues an order that is enough. When Mr. Chamberlain does so he is reminded that there is a British Constitution.
The very existence of the totalitarian States with their menacing foreign policy is a constant temptation to our own Government to arm itself with some of their powers. When quick action is necessary an inner Cabinet is tempted to assume responsibiltiies which belong to the whole Cabinet, and major policies are adopted before Parliament is con- sulted. It is obviously irksome to a British Prime Minister to be subjected to constant criticism in the Press when his opposite number in Germany or Italy is blissfully free from such handicap. In time of strain and stress even a British Government is tempted to apply pressure, legitimate or illegitimate, upon the newspapers, and to use the Official Secrets Acts for purposes for which they were not intended. One Member of Parliament has gone so far as to advocate legislation for a Press censorship.
But the danger comes not only from the illegitimate use of power. It springs also from the necessities of the case when we are preparing for war. You cannot make or pre- pare war on a modern scale without regimentation. The soldier, whether he is a volunteer or a conscript, must submit himself to unquestioned authority. Even the civilian worker in the national services must find himself more and more under orders in proportion as the danger of war draws nearer. Industry must be regulated in the interest of supplies for military needs, and arrangements must be made for the complete control, in emergency, of all imported food and its distribution. The whole of Germany is organised as one elaborate piece of machinery designed for certain fixed purposes in war and preparation for war. To compete with that we, too, have to organise a no less elaborate and equally unified piece of machinery. If we fail in that, we go under. If we succeed, have we not sacrificed our freedom, and become totalitarian ? In compelling us to resist, or prepare for resistance, have the dictatorships already won to the extent of compelling us to accept their authoritarian methods ?
That, I think, is a part—though only a part—of what Lord Baldwin has in mind when he asks if democracy can resist tyranny without becoming enslaved. If we are to avoid this moral defeat it can only be by voluntarily sub- jecting ourselves to discipline for the sake of something which the nation deems to be worth while. "The countries hey (the democracies) are called upon to defend with their lives must be in the eyes of their citizens more and more worth living and dying for, because they provide more and more the conditions and the elements of the good life—the divine right of the common man. In other words, they must strive with more insistence and passion than ever before to make real the twin ideals of social justice and individual freedom."
This brings us logically to an aspect of the question which depends not on the actions of the dictators, but on ourselves. This country's capacity to discipline itself with material efficiency without loss of spiritual freedom depends on the conviction that the conditions of such freedom are kept safe here, that there is already something here worth guarding, and that even under pressure it will not be sur- rendered. That " something " belongs, in our consciousness of it, to that strange, elusive entity, the British character, and it would become more elusive still, more thin, if it did not include some elements at least of culture—our regard for literature, for art, for natural beauty, for ideas. There are some who reasonably fear that all this is endangered by conditions other than those imposed on us by the strident voices and the marching armies of the dictators. Lord Baldwin, who covers so wide a field in these three lectures of his, speaks of another kind of totalitarianism threatening the national life—the influences of the mass organisations of industry, and the mass shaping of opinion through "the daily food of sensation ancl horror served up by the sensa- tional papers numbing our sense of feeling and our capacity for realisation." The advent of the "mass mind" was already threatening us with a sort of totalitarianism before Hitler's voice was raised or Goebbels turned on his Press. In quieter times the reasoning elements in the community were alive to this danger, and set themselves to counter it by efforts to improve education, to humanise industry, to encourage the arts, and foster interests which by their own intrinsic worth would gain adherents among the masses and leaven the mass mind.
But in this time of storm and stress this guardianship is withdrawn or weakened. The assaults that have been made on our peace of mind have diminished our peaceful activities. Far less thought is given to the once pressing problems of the social services. The problems of the schools and education in general get little more than routine attention. Even writers and artists find themselves more and more drawn into the obsessing controversies of political ideologies and thought of war, and readers turn from ima- ginative literature to the call of A.R.P. No wonder that artists cannot sell their pictures, that the National Theatre languishes, and that books (except of the Left or Right) are not read. Yet in proportion as the mind of the country is diverted by the dictators from its creative occupations, to that extent it is succumbing to them—to that extent it is suffering defeat, and losing the very qualities for which democracy stands, and for which its citizens are prepared to die. Hence the need for Lord Baldwin's exhortations. The democracies have to make themselves efficient. They have to organise their national resources for resistance. But it is only "if the spiritual effort they put forth is greater than, and in control of, their material effort" that they them- selves, in resisting tyranny, will avoid enslavement.
Previous page
