One does not buy a weapon without an enemy in view, and I am altogether at a loss to see what enemy Mr. MacDonald has in view--unless it is the Conservative candidates in the shipbuilding constituencies. Does he think he may have to fight France or Italy or Japan or the United States? Those five cruisers will be no good in a war with France; we should have to tuck them away somewhere and put patrols of submarine chasers to take care of them. In a war between France and Britain the mutual suicide, so to speak, would be achieved through the air. The cruisers would hardly be of more use against Italy. It is Italy, however, which is likely to be most estranged by the thought of them. Italy or Japan. Is there a ghost of a chance of a war with either the United States or Japan? It is our excellent custom to defer to the United States, and we always shall. This leaves Japan. Can anything but the blackest folly bring us into a conflict with Japan except on some issue which would put the United States on our side? These cruisers are to cost five million pounds--or more if, failing the Capital Levy, Britain is forced to inflation--and they are to give employment to some few thousands of men. Meanwhile I gather that the educational clauses of that magnificent Labour programme which was to have kept the next generation at school (and off the crowded labour market) until it reached the age of sixteen are to be crippled--à la Fisher--for want of funds. The more Parliament changes, I perceive, the more it is the same thing. It is organised for politicians by politicians; it is elected so stupidly that the statesman wilts into the politician so soon as he breathes its air. He ceases to see beyond the division lobby and the dockyard vote. If laying down cruisers is the chief business of government and the chief end of taxation, I would rather, on the whole, see Mr. Amery spending my money than Mr. Ammon. XXVIII DICTATORS OR POLITICIANS? THE DILEMMA OF CIVILISATION 22.3.24 The drift towards dictatorships in many of the European countries has been very marked in the last few years. The mental distress and physical discomforts arising out of the steady process of financial, social, and economic decay in the tangle of nationalist States in Europe, have liberated a lively and widespread discontent with the methods of representative government. The legal way and the parliamentary way has seemed too long, tedious, and disingenuous for the urgent needs of the times. In Italy and Spain, in Hungary and Germany, we have had the complete dictatorship; the shadow of a dictatorship has fallen upon the French outlook. There has been an outbreak of bosses, strong men, tyrants after the Greek pattern, statesmen with special powers, suspensions of the constitution and so forth, across the entire European stage.