Liberty and the new intolerance
`Emphasis is rightly placed on the laws and institutions which protect liberty in this country,' wrote Sir Ivor Jennings in his famous study of The British Constitution. 'What is less often realised is that liberty is a consequence not of laws and institu- tions but of an attitude of mind.' It be- comes daily more clear that the 'attitude of mind' without which civil liberty shrinks or disappears is now neither so widespread nor so generally respected in this country as used to be taken for granted. Cardinal Heenan's measured warning last Sunday that 'a new spirit of intolerance' threatened our traditional concepts of freedom and order was forceful and disturbing but not novel. The growth of forces prepared to seek political ends by methods alien to a democratic parliamentary system, backed by violence or threats of violence, is all too obvious.
It is a sad irony that the present election campaign, which ought to reveal the democratic processes at their most active and fertile, had in fact scarcely begun when these new intolerant forces gained their greatest victory to date: and that the last hours of the dying Parliament should have seen a startling abandonment by authority of that 'attitude of mind' indis- pensable to civil liberty. Yet when one looks back now upon the events which led to the cancellation of the South African cricket tour, the central facts are seen to be simple enough: the proposed games were entirely lawful, a small minority group nevertheless threatened to disrupt them, whereupon the Government. fearing violence would fallow, forced the abandon- ment of the whole tour.
In drawing conclusions from the episode it is necessary to see it in perspective. There is, it has been said, nothing very important about the cancellation of a few cricket matches. That would certainly be true. were the cancellation not so striking an indication of the new power of intoler- ant minorities in this country and of a changing attitude in some quarters towards civil liberty. Furthermore, it is befogging the issue to complain that the cricketing authorities had mishandled the affair (as we think they had) or to argue that apart- heid in South Africa is an evil system (as we think it is). For even if the cricketing authorities harboured racialist sympathies (and it is absurd to suggest it) and even if they had conducted their negotiations with monumental clumsiness, the facts would have been unaltered. It was the cricketing community's unarguable right to play South Africans if they wished to, and the Government required them not to do so because of the threat of violence -from a small group.
It is always a sound rule for govern- ments. as for private people. not to yield to threats. The short-term benefit thereby gained (and in this case it included a rather shabby hope of electoral gain from a quiet June) is most unlikely to outweigh the longer-term disadvantages. 'Once you have paid him the Dane-geld, You never get rid of the Dane.' In this case the next demand is already being formulated. Having denied one set of people their legitimate right to play cricket with South Africa. the victors in the -affair are now proposing to deny others their legitimate right to do business with South Africa.
Of course, if the Labour party wins the election and has to cope with planned dis- order directed to this end, it will no doubt try to show itself stiffer in resistance than it has done over cricket. Mr Wilson and his colleagues have cherished our trade with South Africa (one of Britain's chief customers) and they know very well the extent to which the economy depends upon if. But to what lengths will militants go. having seen one such resounding victory gained?
The new spirit of intolerance in fact presents a double threat to the country. There is first the threat of continuous dis- order, with all the danger to persons and property and the degradation of public life that go with it. Beyond that there is the threat to established liberties, all the greater now that it has been shown a British government can be induced to suppress lawful activities if enough noisy threats are issued in advance. At the moment South Africa is the fashionable target: it will not always be so. The intolerants do not con- fine their disapproval to circumstances overseas. When they are minded to try their new strength on some institution here at home. or to stamp out some heresy they detect among another group of English- men, they now have at hand a tried and successful pattern for militant action.
Naturally intolerance flourishes when the social climate is favourable. No doubt a sense of increasing tensions in this island contributed to the Government's decision to surrender over the cricket tour: hence the argument that race relations here would have suffered if it had taken place. This argument is hollow and will remain so if it is brought out again in the future to justify some fresh invasion of civil liberty. Race relations have already suffered here because of the cancellation. It is one thing for a tolerant country (which this still predominantly is) to make room for immigrants and invite them to share its freedoms. It is entirely different for the country then to be told that it must next abandon certain traditional activities for fear of offending the newcomers, that it may not even play cricket with whomso- ever it chooses. Could there be a surer way of inviting a backlash? How many election candidates, indeed, have already met this very thing? And the tragedy is that coloured immigrants (who did not start the anti-tour agitation) have as great an interest as any other citizens in the principle that all shall be free to go about their lawful activities, safe from private or official bullying.
A government's duty when confronted by an overt challenge from the new intol- erants is plain. It is to resist any attempt to diminish the ordinary liberties of the country. It is to assert the supremacy of the elected representatives of the people over self-appointed bands who believe if they shout and threaten enough they may get their way. It is to show with determina- tion that freedom to undertake lawful activities will not be curtailed under duress.
What we have just seen is the precise opposite of all this. The Government yielded to noisy factions and it did so in a furtive way. not even accepting open responsibility for the surrender but trying (with total lack of conviction. it may be said) to shuffle it off upon the victimised cricketers. There is little that is creditable in this affair and there are no consolations to be extracted from it. The bully-boys of politics have tasted blood: they have made a British government run away rather than stand firm on a strai'rhtforward issue of liberty. Or perhaps. if there is a consola- tion. it is that the eoisode may make the ordinary peonle of this country see with a new clarity the vulnerability of their free and tolerant way of life. That at least would he somethinn: for the signs are that they are oroing to have to exert themselves to defend it.
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