THIS RECKLESS NOTE IS WORTH PURSUING

Qum stions of the week
by Mie hael de hi Bedogere
THE sudden, unexpected and apparently absolutely final ending of all petrol rationing, ceming as it has after notable alleviations
in the food rationing, is likely to have a most refreshing effect on the whole community.
The most remarkable thing about it has been the Government's readiness to take so very major a decision almost, it would seem, on the spur of the moment.
.Up till now, it has shown a certain love of discipline for discipline's sake. and one would have expected to date the release on some future appointed day. This would doubtless have been administratively more convenient, and socialism which naturally has a penchant for controls always tends to underrate the important psychological effects of a fresh bout of freedom.
It does not readily see that good news may be worth to the country a good deal more than savings effected through careful and over-responsible cal culations. Even less easy does it find it to realise that the whole people are likely to rejoice in freedoms which in fact only directly benefit a section of the population.
It is curious that this should be so since all the evidence goes to show that normal and natural human beings seem to derive almost as much pleasure from vicariously enjoying the wealth and position of those better-off than themselves as in making the best of their own position, If this were not so, the popular Press would hardly survive, since so much of it is devoted to the reporting of the doings of the successful, the wealthy and the powerful.
Socialism is, of course, absolutely right in lighting the battles of the less fortunate, but it would be stronger than it is and far less vulnerable if it were able to do this without at the same time suggesting that there is something intrinsically wrong in
rising above the average. Without Incentive, or alternatively the whip. there is no chanee of progress and efficiency in human society.
However there are many signs that the lesson is gradually being learnt, and Labour will do well not to forget the joy with which the British people tear up the coupons and forms which have necessarily held them constrained for so many years. That joy has immense productive value.
The ee Moderates" is generally understood that at
the recent private Labour Party conference in Surrey, Mr. Morrison's moderates won the day. So far, so good ; because moderation in this context means resistance to the extreme doctrinaire Socialism of the Left Wing.
But need we agree with those commentators who deduce that while Mr. Morrison has safeguarded many present Labour votes, he is faced with the problem that with a "moderate " policy there is nothing left in the Labour outlook to attract and win fresh Labour votes?
We cannot believe that the roodcrate supporters of Labour are so bankrupt of ideas and so nervous as to be unable to pursue fresh lines which would in fact be extremely attractive to large sections of the electorate who feel, not without reason, that the Conservatives are far from united behind our social experiment for a fair way of living by all the people.
A sense of adventure and more enhanced living should result from the Labour idealism; but this will not come about if Labour remains more interested in negative supervision than in giving a positive anti exciting lead for all to make their best of our conditions of life, In a decently run country, it should be Labour which encourages harder work for the good of all and which offers the incentive that really corresponds to hard work done,
Likewise it should be Labour with its international ideal which sets the pace in a sane and constructive foreign policy uniting in common endeavour all men of goodwill.
The Schuman Plan
ONE wishes, for example, that the fresh note of recklessness which appears to have shown itself in the quick petrol rationing
decision were more forthcoming in far more serious matters.
We always tend to underrate the human capacity for quickly adjust ing itself to a fresh situation. History seems largely to consist of resistances to changes which when finally forced turn out to be far less dangerous than has been imagined. Very often, subsequent troubles are not the result of the change, but of the long delay in effecting the change. How different, for example, would have been the story of the relations between Britain and Ireland had not the British been absolutely convinced that the Irish were not fit to govern themselves!
Today Britain is faced with one of the great challenges of world history. The Schuman plan for pooling the heavy industries of Western Europe and its acceptance in principle by Germany may well prove to be the critical initiative in the whole story of this generation of Europeans.
If it succeeds United Europe will become a reality; if it fails the countries of Western Europe can but drag on, impotent against the .Communist East and, at best, a dependent outpost of the American defences.
Evideqtly decisions of this historic nature need an act of constructive imaginative faith.
Were they just a matter of calculation in terms of quantitative " pros" and " cons " to be measured according to the old tables, they would be of only secondary importance.
What is involved in them is precisely a readiness to face immediate " cons" because of the vision which sees a new order and quality of " pros " in a better future. We need to realise that the fresh spirit end
incentive of such a new order will very rapidly turn the " cons " of today into the " pros" of tomorrow.
Petty Fears
FOR this reason it is extremely dis
appointing that the British Government, while forced to profess a verbal approval of the Sehurpan initiative, has actually very carefully and narrowly qualified its line of action in regard to it.
Up till now the Government's excuse for remaining half-hearted about United European projects has been Britain's double role of European nation and the chief member of the global Commonwealth of Nations. But it is hard to see how this excuse would serve in the present case.
Here the deeper reason peeps through. It is a fear of the depression of labour standards in this country and a fear of the loss of an absolute economic control over our own people in pursuit of the planned Welfare State, artificially hacked by controlled exports.
Calculated in these terms it is possible that both fears are wellgrounded. But seen in terms of the vision of a new future such fears arc petty.
Even from a really generous and wise Socialist point of view such. fears are unworthy, since the Socialist should have sufficient faith in his ideals to believe that the higher standards and ideals of Socialist Britain will better the people of the Continent rather than deo the lower and worse standards of the Continent will depress us.
And it is surely common sense that the pooled resources of a United Europe, apart from the latter's enormous political advantage, would very rapidly create of a productive capacity and trade balance with America resulting in far higher and more stable standards than Britain enjoys today.
And should those standards prove to be an high as to make contemporary Socialism as unpopular in Europe and Britain as it is today in America will that be a loss 7 Socialism grew as a method of defence against capitalist exploitation in a world of want. Will those who sincerely believed in it, so long as this danger remained, remain faithful to it when resources are much greater and the means of preventing exploitation part of the common
property of civilised nations ? If so, it is the formula rather than the reality which is being pursued.
Neutrality
ONE is astonished to learn that
in certain quarters the Schuman plan is regarded as a possible reinforcement of the specious idea that Europe and still more Germany should be neutral in the face of the Americo-Russian tension.
The consequences in regard to political neutrality of Catholic spiritual and moral teaching would seem to have been variously interpreted according to the precise meaning given to the political terms involved; but it can hardly be doubted that there can be no neutrality of the Christian mind in regard to the Communist system and, still more, the Communist ideological and, when possible, physical aggres sion. And here the Christian outlook corresponds very clOsely to the Western liberal outlook.
Is it then possible to conceive of SO strong a spiritual and moral antipathy against Russian dominated Communism in conjunction with
political neutrality ? Even if the attempt were made by Western Europe, Moscow,. quite apart from
its amoral and aggressive ideology, would have a reasonable excuse for taking precautions against such fundamentally hostile neighbours in time of war.
In other words, the question of
neutrality cannot really arise. The choice is between submission to Moscow or the risks of resistance to Moscow; and the idea of European neutrality today is nothing but another Communist weapon which we may expect Moscow to exploit for all its worth.
The Whitsun parades in Eastern Berlin prove once again, if any proof were needed, that Russia cam not conceive of German neutrality in case of conflict, but on the contrary has built up a formidable German force contrary to all pledges. The time must come when the West will realise the stupidity of congratulating itself on its probity in not rearming Western Germany. as though Russia would be in the slightest deFree impressed by this policy.
The Schuman plan, apart from its other merits, should clear the way for the rearmament of a country which, if the plan, works, will no longer be able to turn against Western Europe. Hence it must powerfully help the whole policy of a sufficiently unified and sufficiently strong defence against Russian-dominated Communism as to give to the world a hope of relative peace and the security of religion and liberty in the West.
For years we have been reluctantly forced to move step by step towards the policy which was from the first clearly demanded by the nature of the Russian challenge. America's already too long postponed lead for a united Western defence logically involves the rearmament of Germany. This in turn involves a united European system into which Germany can be integrated on a basis of equality with others. The Schuman plan is the first decisive step towards that necessity.