Much Fiddling While Rome Burns

IF, somewhere in outer space, there is an observer with his super-telescope trained upon Earth, he must be mightily intrigued and amused by to-day’s picture.

He will note the Iron Curtain, stretch ing from the Arctic across Central Europe; across the Middle East, north eastward of Turkey, Iraq and Persia; and across Asia, following the line of the Himalayas, to Indo-China. On the one side, lines of grim-visaged Reds, crack ing merciless whips over the toiling ranks of countless millions, who are hopelessly carrying out their master’s bidding, and preparing for the coming war.

On the other side of the Curtain, the most comical spectacle in human history: very many thousands of agitated little people rushing aimlessly around, getting in each other’s way, telling each other that the situation is extremely grave, and that something really must be done about it. And holding conferences —endless, useless and incredibly expensive confer ences —and general elections —which are even more useless than the conferences.

The over-all picture of the world to day must be very funny indeed—provided one’s condition and fate are not bound up with it. Unfortunately, there is not one of us who is not threatened by this Cold War —which is so quickly becoming a Hot War. And few are more directly menaced than those South Pacific com munities which are part of the Western world. The spectacle of Communism sweeping across overcrowded Asia, ap proaching our northwest frontiers, is not in the least amusing.

Scarcely a week passes when there is

not, in Europe or America or the South Seas, a portentous gathering of Govern mental VlP’s, who solemnly debate measures considered necessary “to pro tect Western civilisation from the grow ing menace of Totalitarianism,” who painfully transcribe the shorthand re ports of their wearisome discussions for presentation to their bored and indiffer ent parliaments, and then, when the re ports are well and truly pigeon-holed, proceed to do it all over again. In this part of the world, within a few weeks, we have had the Colombo Conference, and the South Pacific Conference, and the Southeast Asia Conference —and the whole lot of them, in view of what is actually happening in the world, are merely so much fiddling.

The agitation of the Western nations —amounting at times to hysteria—is completely justified. The world to-day is threatened in a way never known be fore. A combination of forces incredibly evil is planning to wipe away our Western concept of communal life, arid to fasten upon all mankind a system of govern ment that is based on the enslavement of the human body and spirit. Emphati cally, the overv/helming majority of people—on both sides of the Iron Cur tain—do not want Communism; but the promoters of Communism, with supreme cleverness and cunning, are using the weaknesses of our Western Democracy to fasten the shackles upon us.

One of the greatest of these weaknesses is the long-fought-for and tenderly cherished One-man-one-vote. Universal adult suffrage was the core of our socio political set-up, and an institution to be

jealously guarded, while all human pro gress was following the logical road in dicated by our thousand years of social evolution. But to-day when we are faced with a danger that calls for quick international decisions, close organisa tion and ruthlessness in action, we are handicapped almost beyond belief by the idea that our governments, before taking action, must go back to the parliaments for authority, and the parliaments, in turn, must go back to the people. Not one voter in a hundred appreciates the vital, fundamental differences between Individualism and Totalitarianism: and yet that is the choice with which the world is immediately confronted.

IF the Western world values human free dom, it must be prepared to fight for it again, as it fought in 1914-18 and 1939-45. There is no alternative.

Whether the Muscovite Communists planned this thing after the collapse of the Axis Powers, in the mid-forties, is now immaterial: the point is that Western weakness and dithering allowed the Muscovite conspiracy for the en slavement of the world to go so far that now it cannot be put into reverse. A war between Western civilisation and Mus covite Communism seems inevitable.

The only thing that might stop it would be a close union of the Western nations, a clear-cut anti-Red policy, and—above all —an integration of armed forces so powerful that even the Moscow conspira tors may be scared off. But how can we achieve such a combination when so many of our leaders devote so much of their time to the uplift of down-trodden races, and so much of their ingenuity to plans for persuading the ignorant and uninstructed voters to maintain them in office! Moscow’s emissaries are at work

fh every democratic country, creating in dustrial chaos and keeping ti e voters in a state of uncertainty—and thus un dermining parliarr, •'fits and governments.

Sociological planning—within which category come such things as t 1 e South east Asia Conference, and the South Pacific Conference, and even the United Nations, itfif —may be justified on most scores in time of peace. But in time of war—and if the present is not a time of war, we have never seen war!—all our thoughts pend energies must be di rected towards the protection of our freedom and the maintenance of our most cherished institutions.

Certainly, the Islands people are well worth every sociological effort we can make on their behalf. But why waste time and effort on Conference organisa tion when it is doubtful whether they will be free to accept our instruction and institutions in three or four years’ time?

It is in the highest degree desirable that the under-privileged folk of Southeast Asia be assisted to better standards of living. But what can the over-strained and financially-embarrassed British Com monwealth do to help the 500 or 600 million people in South and Southeast Asia, within the brief period left to us?

Time enough for the sociological plan ners to get busy when the world is at peace again. The trouble has been that the planners—especially the Bloomsburv variety, that produced the catastrophic British Government —assumed in 1945 that the world was safe for Democracy, and proceeded accordingly; whereas the cessation of fighting in 1945 merely made the world safe for Muscovite Totalitarian

ism. The spectacle of Rome burning while Nero fiddled was as nothing to the sight of our leading statesmen confer ring frantically in three continents, while Uncle Joe puts a Red halter around the world.