A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK S OME attendants at the Liberal Summer School
at Cambridge thought, it seems, that Mr. Dingle Foot in demanding, in his address there, freedom for all, included Communists. There is nothing new about that question, but it remains perplexing. Com- munism is not a serious danger in this country. Free speech is a fundamental principle of democracy, but does that mean freedom of speech within the orbit of a democratic system, or freedom to attract and endeavour to destroy the very basis of democracy ? The answer is not so simple, particularly if you put it, not in a politically secure Great Britain, 5ut in a country like, say, Italy, where an aggressive Communism is a force to be reckoned with seriously. The gravest danger of Communism, moreover, is as a potential fifth column. Are nations rightly concerned for their security to let Communism work out its plans unchecked? Mr. Foot demands free speech for Sir Oswald Mosley and Mr. Harry Pollitt. But Sir Oswald Mosley was not allowed free speech during the war. He was locked up. And Mr. Foot held office in the Government that locked him up. This is not war-time and no one wants war restrictions during peace. But the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and if, for example, Communism is convicted of sabotage—which it has not been, I think, in this country yet—it will not do to shrink, in the name of a theoretic freedom in which we all believe, from restrictive measures essential for the preservation of real freedom. With Mr. Foot's general thesis that bad ideas can only be fought successfully by good ideas I fully agree, with the reservation that there are some people who are unfortunately more receptive of bad ideas than of good, and if the preaching of bad ideas obviously and visibly has bad results something must be done about it.
Previous page
