Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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I.: , ..Zi 75 ...nth-.. -at 3 it : ' iiii E ll ll Il ll sl ll ll ll ll ll IK ll-, cause of The Great War was of this sort rather than political. Even in the national life of our states economic interest groups of various kinds manipulate the machinery to their own advantage without consideratian of the welfare or the rights of the rest of the community. It is a question now whether the government controls business or business controls governf ment. Considering the tremendous power held in the hands of economic overlords the question is being asked whether democracy can survive. The growth of socialistic theory in recent years has been a protest against this state of affairs. The Russian experiment Qundoubtedly the greatest social experiment in modern timesj is a threat to the whole current economic idealogy. Whether it succeeds or whether it fails it will undoubtf edly affect in tremendous measure the lives of our grandchildren. Gountering the growth of socialism and definitely aligned against com' munism there has developed in the past few years fascist movements of varif ous kinds. For sometime, the hrst of these, in Italy, was looked upon as a more or less personal expression of the ideas of its leader, or, if not quite so individual, at least it was considered to be a method of government which might be suitable to the Italian people, but not necessarily to others. It was explained that as a nation they had never really learned the basic prinf ciples of political organization necessary to the successful working of the democratic machine and that temperamentally a dictatorship was suitable to them. The national socialist movement in Germany under Hitler was at first a joke. It was felt that the Social Democratic party was competent to operf ate the Weimar Constitution and through it to continue a successful workf ing democracy. The course of international events since the Versailles Treaty, coupled with the effects of the depression, gave Hitler and his associates their opportunity, and at the present moment the national socialist movement in Germany must be considered a major factor in world affairs. The last vestiges of democracy have disappeared in Austria and under the new Austrian constitution the diminutive chancellor acknowledges his responsibility to I God and none to the people. While the sit' uation has not gone so far in France, recent events have demonstrated the strength of the parties of the Right and it is not at all un' likely that the near future will see in that country a definite movement away from the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity and a dictatorial government of a fascist type installed in power. Gbservers in Great Britain are concerned over the recent accession of strength to the parties headed by Sir Oswald Moseley and powerful newspaper interests are behind him in his effort to save Great Britain by a fascist movement which is a complete denial of her democratic tradition, In view of the success V - 7 at enty-two

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4. Y B -745 7'm...nE-L..-ar 54: Z ' iii-Q an-a lallllllllllll S i lffsfim DEMDCIDACY AND EDUCATIUN HE PROGRESS OF civilization has been the story of man's development from isolation to cofopf eration. Primitive man was an individualist. He lived in his own little cave in constant fear of his enemy on the other side of the hill and in mortal terror of anything that existed beyond his own immediate horif zon. Slowly and gradually, however, he learned that safety for the individual was promoted as he learned to cofoperate with others. The desire for self protection was one of the basic movements behind the formation of primitive communities. This idea, however, gradually expanded through various forms of clan and tribal development until the appearance of th.: modern nationfstate. It is conf ceived as one of the functions of our present day social organization that through cofoperation and sharing of common responsibilities and duties, each individual should have a maximum of opportunity to live his own life in the best possible way. The characteristic political organization of the 19th century is an ex' pression of this ideal ffor it has been an ideal rather than an actualityj. Rousseau's philosophy postulated a real degree of freedom for the individf ual in the political forms that we speak of under the general name of democracy. The history of the 19th century is largely the history of the achievement of some form of democratic government, in most of the countries of our western world. It was assumed that a sort of millenium would be achieved when all the adult citizens shared in the government through the franchise and when government itself was made responsible to the people from whom it was assumed the power of government was originally derived. In these latter days, however, our naive faith in democracy has been rudely shattered and it is incumbent upon thoughtful observers to enquire what has happened. The industrial revolution marked the bef ginning of a new type of economic organ' ization. Parallel with the development of the X X forms of political democracy during the last BX 100 years there has developed an economic X oligarchy which has in large measure tended X I to vitiate the potential achievements of def mocracy. Power has been concentrated in L7J' 'Q' fewer and fewer hands and recent investigaf tions in a number of countries have demonf Q strated the extent to which the political scene is controlled from back stage by the economic power. The drive of economic forces, the urge for wider and wider markets ultimately brought the great nations of the world into conflict. It is recognized now that the fundamental Twenty one

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1 E , ..... .... , . 7i '7' .3 : ' : : ll n a s El u u l u u i ti i Q F 535332 13 llllnnnll , IFATITII of fascist parties on the continent of Europe this threat to the British tradition cannot be taken lightly even though at the moment it may not seem very close to power. The Rooseveltian experiment in the United States has been said to hold within it the seeds of fascism or socialism. Any measurf ableldegree of planning and a serious limitaf tion of profits is contradictory, however, to the basic philosophy of our present individf ualist or capitalist economic structure Strong opposition groups are making themselves felt in the United States against these features of Roosevelt's administration and it seems likely that any trend toward a permanent socialist organization in the United States will be eff fectively prevented. The trend, therefore, will be increasingly in the direction indicated by the Fascist governments of the continent with certain regulations of industry but in the interests not of the community as a whole but of special group within that community. Communism, as we have seen it exemplified in Russia, is unquestionably destructive of democratic forms, Fascism, as we have seen it on the con' tinent, is equally destructive of democratic forms. We are, then, apparently facing the possibility of the complete decay of a political form which we are accustomed to believe provides for the individual adequate opportunity for the expression of personality and the attainment of all those objectives which philosophers include under the general heading of the good life. Une of our Canadian political leaders a few months ago admitted that in these modern days democracy had become little more than the technique of getting the largest number of heads counted on your side on election day. This is a sad commentary on the history of the last 100 years. It is an indictment of our own weaknesses that in such a comparatively short time the shining vision of the philosophers should have been so completely lost. The basic reason for the present condition of democracy is that vested interests and economic pressure groups have utilized the machinery of democracy in the pursuit of their own selfish ends. There have been and are influences that should have arrested this process but in too many cases these groups have missed their opportunity. The institutional expansion of the churches has necessitated the exf penditure of large sums of money and for this money they have been dependent on some of those same interests that have been manipulating the political machinery to their own ends. The pressure has been subtle and insidious and it is doubtful if the church has even been conscious of the fact that her silence has been purchased at a price. A similar process has been in evidence in our schools and largely through the same mechanism our educational institutions from lower to fContinued on page 7lj TzL'CnI11Ill1f