Evening star., 1940-02-18

being waged so far by the British
Empire in quite the old spirit" he
wrote. ut has learned nothing and
forgotten nothing. There is the
same resolute disregard of any more
fundamental problem.
"The minds of our comfortable and
influential ruling class people re-
fuse to accept the plain intimation
that their time is over, that the bal
ance of power and uncontrolled busi-
ness methods cannot continue"
Hitler Symptom, Not Disease.
OF the Chamberlain government s
professed war aim-to get rid of
Hitler Wells said:
Hitler, like the Hohenzollerns, is
a mere offensive pustule on the face
of deeply ailing world.
"To get rid of him and his Nazis
will be no more cure for the
worlds ills than scraping will heal
measles.
THE disease will manifest itself
in some new eruption.
"It is the system of Nationalist
individualism and co-ordinated
enterprise that is the worlds dis
ease, and it is the whole system
that has to go. 1t has to be recon-
ditioned down to its foundations or
replaced 1t cannot hope to mud
die through amiably, wastefully and
dangerously second time"
No matter who wins this war
even if it ends in a stalemate-he
predicted, there will be worldwide
social revolution which either will
be violent and destroy civilization or
peaceful and build a new "collec-
twist" world.
Prefers the Latter.
He prefers the latter alternative.
To achieve it, he advocates that all
peoples of the world join in great
debate" on social issues so that they
may better understand each other
and work together for the common
good.
The first step in this debate" he
proposed, must be "a confession of
universal wrong thinking and
wrong doing" He added:
1T is the most dangerous and
wrong view of the world
situation to treat the totalitarian
countries as differing fundamentally
from the rest of the world
Instead of condemning the Nazis
and exalting the British Empire, ne
reversed the shield.
Whatever We may think of the
quality and deeds of the Nazi ur
Fascist regimes or the follies of their
leaders," he said, I'VE must at any
rate concede that they attempt,
however clumsily, to reconstruct
life in collectivist direction. They
are efforts to adjust and construct
and so far they are in advance Of
the British ruling class.
Britain Called Unconstructive.
'The British oligarchy, demoral-
lied and slack with the accumulated
wealth of a century of advantage
bought of social upheaval for a
time by. the deliberate and socially
demoralizing appeasement of the
dole. It has made no adequate ef-
fort to employ or educate these sur
plus people; it has just pushed the
dole at them. It even tries to buy
off the leader Of the Labor Party
with a salary of $4,000 a year.
THE British Empire has shown
itself the least constructive of all
governing networks. 1t produces no
new deals. no five-year plans: it
keeps on trying to stave off its in
evitable dissolution and carry on
upon the old lines-and apparently
it will do that until it has nothing
more to give away.
Nov, and that is why this book
is being written, these people, by a
string of almost incredible blunders,
have entangled what is left of their
empire in great war to end Hit
ler,' and they have absolutely no
suggestion to offer their antagonists
and the world at large of what is to
come after Hitler.
Apparently, they hope to para
lyze Germany in some as yet un-
specified fashion and then 60 back
to their golf links or the fishing
stream and the doze by the fire
after dinner"
Sees Catholic Influence.
Mr.. Wells accused the British gov
ernment of letting the Catholic
church influence it into acquies-
cense in the smashing of "the lib
eral renascence of Spain" He
blames the same influence for the
downfall of Austria and Czecho-
Slovakia and for Russia's "estrange-
ment from the Western World"