MERRY CHRISTMAS ?
IT needs something of an effort to recall one. The politically- minded might feel it necessary to go back to 1910 or thereabouts, those halcyon days when a war seven thousand miles off in South Africa was well forgotten and no major war in Europe thought of. Certainly we must go back beyond 1938, when the shadow of the Munich settlement stirred fore- bodings which the event all too tragically justified. But the past is past, and there is no gain in resurrecting it except so far as it directly determines the future. It is enough to consider the Christmas that the world is celebrating thi's week. What of it ? A merry Christmas ? In Korea ? In Kenya ? In Malaya ? In lndo-China ? In New York, where at the United Nations Assembly the Soviet campaign of antagonism came near to excelling itself in Sunday's nocturnal sitting ? The contrast between the first Christmas and each celebration of it since has varied in degrees of poignancy. In the war years even those to whom the celebration of Christmas was no more than a traditional convention, pagan possibly rather than Christian in origin, realised that, and were moved some to shame and some to cynicism. A world that has fallen short of its possibilities year by year had fallen short then in unprecedented degree.
Today there is nominal peace, darkened here and there by patches of war. Of the war itself, say in Korea, the newspapers tell day by day a terse and unemotional story. This hill is gained or lost, that communication-centre bombed from the air. It makes no visible difference. The front runs from sea to sea, almost precisely where it ran a month, six months, a year, ago. Men are killed and maimed; wives become widows, children orphans; the hill changes hands again; another communication-ceritre gets the bombs. Yet even in Korea the troops, doing uncomplainingly duty that may at any moment mean death, keep Christmas in the spirit in which they have always kept it in some town or village at home. The spirit need not be too closely scrutinised. It often has no consciously religious origin. Christmas does not for the average civilian or the average soldier bring much thought of Bethlehem. The carols may recall that, but it is the tune of the carols more than the words that makes Christmas Christmas. Yet the spirit of Christmas has its meaning, and bears its fruit. Goodwill among men is more of a reality, or perhaps less of an unreality, in this week when cheerfulness and kindly action is felt as in some special sense a duty. • God rest you merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Why ? For Jesus Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day. How clear is the sequence of thought to the singer or the hearer ? Only he can tell. Yet there is that in the words that satisfies the spirit.
A little sentiment, sternly eschewed at other seasons, may be permissible at Christmas, but life is 1 practical thing, and the practical question whether for mankind in general and this kingdom in particular the Christmas of 1952 can be kept with greater hope and confidence than its recent predecessors demands an answer. To furnish one is by no means easy. At least no major war is raging. That in itself is something that could not be taken for granted. It has been said, and with some reason, that if " the war "—its form and nature have been too obvious to make further characterisation necessary—did not come by the end of 1952 it would not come at all; the west would be strong enough by then to deter all aggression from the east. The end of 1952 is here, and it has justified the prediction only in part. The prospect of war, says Mr. Churchill, says Mr. Eden, says President Truman, has receded. But how far ? We cannot yield to the insidious temptation of listening only to what it is satisfying to hear, and turn deaf ears to, for example, General Ridgway when, charged as he is with the immense responsibility of defending Western Europe, he " rejects as unjustifiable and dangerous the view that potential aggressors do not want war, are not ready for war and will not precipitate war; that we are in for a long cold war and therefore should adjust our plans accordingly." That is not an assertion that war is coming. General Ridgway probably does not believe, on balance, that it is. But to assume the danger over, and on the strength of that to relax preparations to meet it, would be the grossest folly. Russia's hostility towards the west is undisguised. Every speech made by Mr. Vyshinsky or Mr. Gromyko, and every article in Pravda, demonstrates it. If Russia thought she could win a short war without the destruction of her cities and her industries she would almost certainly strike. If she thinks that by maintain- ing the cold war she can compel her potential enemies to arm till they strain their economies to the breaking-point the cold war will continue. It is a grim reflection, but an inescapable one, that to preserve the peace—not indeed the peace that the spirit of Christmas embodies but the retreat from war in which alone that spirit can flower—the only way is to give General Ridgway, subject to the considered views of the Defence Ministers of the Western Powers, the forces he con- siders he needs. Half-preparation is hardly better than none.
The bells of Christmas are not ready yet to ring out the thousand years of war, ring in the thousand years of peace. Tennyson was nearer the mark when he foresaw the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue. But security has more than one meaning and more than one field of application. We are not yet secure from war. The firmest believers in the United Nations cannot contend that an organisation on which so many hopes were reposed has carried us far in that direction yet. Certainly the Assembly which has just entered on a long Christmas recess has done little to hearten the optimists. But the efforts cannot be relaxed. More, it may be, in reality has been achieved than appearances would suggest. The perpetual isolation of the States whose intentions are most feared is in present circumstances a good sign. On question after question on which the Assembly divides there is a minority vote of five— Russia and the four States she dominates. The world is on one side and the totalitarian Communists on the other. Their number and their strength—for the new China must be reckoned with them—are not to be underrated. But even so the demonstration to Moscow of how the forces are aligned must be something of a deterrent. There is always, moreover, the question of what is happening on the other side of the hill —or of the curtain. Mr. Noel-Baker observed pertinently in a speech at Derby on Sunday that obviously all was not well in the Iron Curtain countries, and noted as significant evidence of that the fact that of eleven Communists who signed the Cominform manifesto against Yugoslavia in 1948 seven had since been executed for treason. Whatever Christmas may be in Moscow, Christmas in Warsaw and Christmas in Prague will not be conspicuously merry.
But if security against war matters supremely to mankind so, hardly less, does security against want. Here, so far as our own country is concerned, there is more room for cheerful- ness. Life no doubt is hard. Life after a great war invariably is. We are slowly climbing back to solvency, and it is a long and rough road. But thanks to welfare measures for which both parties can claim credit, and neither need claim it at the expense of the other, no family need go short of food—as tens of thousands of families used to within living memory— today, and none of shelter, though it will be long yet before the whole nation has the housing it deserves. Prices are high, but so are wages. The predicted unemployment has not materialised on any substantial scale, and unemployment pay, when that has to be called on, is enough to stave off want. Family allowances have eased many household budgets. The question is not whether at this Christmas conditions are what we would wish them—they manifestly are not—but whether they are better than prevailed at the Christmas of 1951 and its ten or a dozen predecessors. The answer must be that on the whole they are. We are not moving fast, but the move- ment is in the right' direction. And the.spirit of Christmas ? Perhaps the House of Commons adjourned too soon to get infected with it. Tolerance, goodwill, mutual helpfulness are of the essence of it. And the mind can in some degree be independent of circumstance. It can make its own peace, but not by centring itself on things seen and temporal. There is a wider environment and a larger hope. Yet the Christmas message was of peace on earth to men of goodwill. It is as they endeavour to create that for one another that the Christmas spirit is seen in action.
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