In my opinion, it is necessary to bring into existence, within the limits of the war effort, a real vital democracy in Britain not only because social justice demands it but also because the war itself demands it. It is the very people here who cry, "Get on with the war and stop chattering about your aims and plans." who are most likely to hinder us from winning the war. To begin with, they have no sense of a complete war strategy, in which civilian moral plays a very great part, It is they who, by insisting upon regarding this war as a nationalistic affair and by loudly denouncing all Germans as such, have so often played into Goebbels' hands and helped him to line up the German people behind Hitler.
Again, it is on the shoulders of the ordinary folk of Britain that the chief burden of this war is falling. Fortunately their moral is high, but it is more likely to remain high. or even reach greater heights, if they are convinced that they arg\toiling and suffering not to preserve something: faulty but to bring into existence a better quality of life for all their kind. The British are good, none better, at merely "sticking it," but there is a very difference between mere endurance and an ardent enthusiasm. The latter can release new stores of energy and goodwill. If.we are merely preserve ing an old country, then we do our best but still stand on our "rights." But if we are helping to create a new country, which is to be ours, then we care nothing for rights and privileges and sectional interests, but hurl ourselves into the common task.
Therefore, from every point of view, except that of persons who believe their own privileges and interests are even more important than the result of the war it is essential that we should have aims and plans, and that we should begin to create a new vital democracy not simply after the war but here and now. Our immediate plan should be the maximum war effort plus the maximum possible social equity. We cannot achieve equality of sacrifice but we can at least move in that direction. And, be it noted, the Government has all the power it needs, for this was voted it without discussion nearly a year ago, and with full public approval.
British life is essentially an elaborate network of corporate associations that are nonpolitical in character. (This is one of our sources of strength.) And much can be done with such associations in the post-war world, not only nationally but also internationally. is a mistake to think too much in terms of the state. The community, which is never the state, can work both inside and outside the more rigid political framework. And I believe that it is in a balance between such associations, of which trade unions and professional leagues and guilds are an example, and the state, which may exercise control at times to protect the community, that the future of true democracy may be found.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.