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Debate.

And Now We Know!

the quality of student debates at V.U.C. - or was not, "That the Democracies must become Totalitarian in order to win the war" typical of V.U.C. debates?

We freshers hope not.

Friday night's entertainment could not in truth be called a debate, for when sifted of irrevelancies and repetitions, it was little more than an expression of fact in support of some supercilious philosophy by the affirmative, and some hair-splitting, together with a dislike of the U. S. S. R. by the negative. The fault was not with the speakers but with the motion, Messrs. Foley and Sheehan being due for congratulations for coining so close to making a case out of a situation that was hopeless.

Mr. Meek opened for the affirmative, with what he called the theory or dry bones of the argument, and was followed by Mr. Foley, who did his best to convince a doubting audience that Democracy was unquenchable. The skeleton with which Mr. Meek had presented us, was then stuffed and dressed up for mob consumption by Mr. McCreary. Mr. Sheehan thought the staunch character, and inflexible will of the Briton would, hold the fort for Democracy against all comers.

Mr. Meek traced the history of Democracy from Grecian times, explaining that the meaning of the term had changed constantly, and today meant nominal freedom to do almost anything, but actual freedom to do only what was sanctioned by the existing economic system. Fascism, he said, arose when the nominal rights of the proletariat were used to challenge the economic order, and when the machinery of capitalism was under severe strain. War, by testing capitalism to the utmost, always produced such a crisis, and into the bargain created an angry proletariat - conditions which history has shown to precede, either fascist reaction, or socialist revolution.

Mr. Foley, opening for the negative, devoted most of his time to a comparison of democracy and totalitarianism. He declared that fascism had created a "national revival" in the countries in which it had taken root - that their whole economy and state machinery were organised for war, but failed to see any parallel between these processes, and the actions of a democracy preparing for war. The job of the affirmative was to show that a democracy, in order to win a war, must go totalitarian, while the negative had to prove to the contrary. All speakers for the negative, however, admitted in some manner or other, that democracy as such, could not fight a war, but argued that the state would still be a democracy if it threw over its totalitarian power when the war was over. Quite so, but this was not disproving the motion.

The audience took little serious interest in affairs, speakers from the floor being slow in coming forward. It was clearly shown, however, that no political entity could fight a modem war, without power to control all its material resources, to suppress all internal., dissent, to conscript man power if necessary, and to use intensive propaganda. In short, it must become totalitarian.

The crux of the problem, and the point which the motion failed to bring out, was whether, having borrowed the machinery of fascism, the democracies would bother to pay back at the close of hostilities. This point is especially pertinent in review of the somewhat shady, and most certainly undemocratic, foreign policy pursued by Britain over the last six years, and the degree to which France has already gone fascist.

R. G. S.