Voices of Europe; The Duke of Bedford and Lord Adams

Voices of Europe Milton mair American author and lecturer broadcaster and professor in the Institute of Social Research from Frankfurt University. Today interviews the Duke of Bedford the great hereditary estate and Castle of The Dukes of Bedford is Welborn Abbey in the county of Bedfordshire England. The present twelfth Duke does not live in the Abbey but like so many of England's highest nobility in a small house on the estate the Bedford family name is Russell and the first Russell was elevated to the peerage of England in the year fifteen thirty nine. The present Duke's great grandfather incidentally was the grandfather of Bertrand Russell the philosopher and now here is Milton Mayer to interview the Duke of Bedford. Your Grace you are known as a radical and a persistently radical me. How did you get that way. I think probably they're the beginning of May tendency towards independent thought. It can be traced to the

fact that when I was a boy were sent to school. I was very unhappy they are and their city than the tendency is to worship public opinion and do nothing contrary to public opinion. I probably unconsciously perhaps began to distrust that like opinion. Later as a young man in order to meet my father's wishes contrary to Mayor and inclination I joined the Army of the Territorials and was attached for the tie into the green that the occult there partly because unfortunately there am slow in the emergency there. I felt that I was missed incompetence as as a servant. When the first world war broke out

my father was very anxious that Daley should rejoin the army and help at that time there. I had a duty to render some service to my fellow men but I was equally positive that the army was not the place where I could render that service. Many thought that took by decision very hard way and tried to disinherit me there and for about twenty years I have us cut off from May at the beginning of the war and had joined the way MCSA working among the troops and had a very varied and interesting time. I think that I can claim two of wash dishes and almost in the housewife during the six years that I was with the wear and sea air and I will say again that first experience of happy Christian fellowship.

Of the war and feigned to put me in touch with the work of the Prisoners Aid Society and their Portsmouth prison trying to help the prisoners when they went out I learned some lessons which had a go of this being of the very greatest failure. I learned never to judge a man's civil there by what he had done but always to take into consideration his provocations and handicaps. I learnt also that it is impossible to arrive at a fair judgement until you have heard fully with the sages the case in their opinion when the greatest weakness is in the statesman of our present time is that they have not learned those lessons which I did and in may work among the prisoners.

Do you find this weakness here Grace among the statesmen of your country or of mine. I've had them almost equal in the meant the statesmen of both that at the present time the errors of the American statesman of course even the most serious because America is now the most powerful and influential country in the world. The really weakness in the policy of both of British and American Statesman seems to me that there be their complete lack of imagination their failure as I have just said to put themselves in the place of the other side. You take into consideration propagations and handicaps and to hear fully of both sides they also tend to forget

that men are the most extraordinary mixture of good and evil. They also over the obsessed by the untrustworthiness of their political opponents they do not sufficiently realise their interest within this is only an obstacle when people about different things if they should both want the same thing. For example freedom from the hazards of atomic war. There is always the charms of satisfactory agreement being reached on the basis of bin Laden's self-interest. Again I feel that British and American Statesman although they criticize severely the statesman the current in this country is when they justify doing evil that good may come themselves frequently make exactly the same mistake

apparently believing that the ends justify the means they have to ready use of war is the Arabs tending example of this unfortunate failing. Those who believe in ball as an instrument of international policy should remember that it is the clumsiest most unsaid in the most dangerous instrument. They reason the bits of nature and of human nature they should never therefore contemplate or threaten ball until they have done everything in their power to meet all the legitimate grievances of the other side or force in a protegee government to do the same and they should insist absolutely if they have such a government never gives the slightest provocation to the other side. It

is the greatest possible blunder to go into war on the weak as in confused the issue as in my opinion the British government did in the case of dancey in the published coverage of the beginning of the last war and the American government did in the case of Korea. It is better to appear to give way to aggression hope a dozen times then big this mistake of going to war on the weak issue. When you have knocked on the hip it's impossible to be the grievances of the other side and to avoid giving in your provocation. In fact I'm not merely in propaganda theory. But I must ask you your Grace on behalf certainly of most of my countrymen and I think perhaps on behalf of most of yours what other way there is in your view than the present

course. How how would you reconstruct British and also American policy if you could. In addition to making it more imaginative in the way I have already suggested seeing that the great nations of the world appear to find it very difficult to reach agreement at present on total world disarmament I think a beginning should be in the way they want and by regional disarmament. For example I think that there's parts of the world which are at present special burdens of contention should be constituted demilitarized areas and I think they had German air Austria a united Korea Formosa and Japan

should all be constituted demilitarized areas under the guarantee and protection of the United Nations and of Russia in the present government of China. I feel that if there were done international tension would be greatly relaxed and that all the countries acting as gallant TAWS would fight it to their advantage to keep their side of the bargain. No war there stop there if a beginning with a Bahai demilitarization of these countries it might be extended later to other countries and before the home. I feel. That the cultural and economic achievements of the demilitarized areas freed from the burden about the millions would make such a worldwide impression that even the most awkward

governments indeed knew that partly by the fear of the terrible hazards of modern war with agreed to world disarmament with adequate safeguards which would satisfy all parties. We think also there at it is a terrible blunder. The sacrifice. But in my opinion this is about the only good thing which came out of the war. The preferred the version the war created them and the people of Germany and Japan. The present policy of remilitarization of course set of bases there. When they get in and seems to me to be criminal for all they have. Is there anything else besides regional disarmament that you would suggest. Your Grace has an

immediate and practicable step to be taken. I think that the government of the United States should take the initiative in calling a world economic confidence to consider the resources of the world can better be developed for the benefit of the people of the home world than the specially of the more needy peoples. In order to give such a confidence some guarantee of success. I think it is absolutely necessary there. The government of the United States and also the governments of the various parts of the British Empire should adopt a reformed financial system because the existing financial system especially in very wealthy

countries like the United States can be a most serious hindrance to the proper exploitation of available resources everything motherly right and physically possible can and should also be made financially possible. Very briefly there the chief features in the interphone financial system out of our lives. The supply of money should be related to the thing which money is needed to buy and indeed to the output than the import of goods and services. Money should be created not in the form of debt and put into circulation as it is required. It is not I think generally realized that practically all the money under the present system is created either for the principle of a bank of their own which interest is paid or to enable banks to buy themselves

securities. This is not at all a good plan as it increases the burden of public debt. It is also very necessary to realize that in the new age of labor saving inventions and discoveries the Erl plan of relating the right to receive an income very closely to employment needs to be modified. Technical unemployment in anything approaching peacetime conditions is now becoming unavoidable. It is most necessary to begin to look up and employment in the technical sense not as a needle but as an achievement in the end for the person itself. Creative leisure. Taxation in my opinion should

be employed little if at all for obtaining revenue for the state. But mainly to prevent inflation. They had a moving surplus money from circulation. And a last question your grace. What in your view would be the consequence of the failure of the Western powers to proceed with these two programs of demilitarization and financial reform. I am afraid that it probably is that World War and the consequence of a third world war. These I think would almost certainly be the devastation of even a great part of the world and especially of course of the civilized

world and the consequences of their devastation would be such political chaos there as it is set in there. The forms of government which would be established would have moves of the objectionable features so to tella Teddie in the ism which through the Democrats so you rightly deplore the present. Thank you very much your very. Milton Maier has been interviewing the Duke of Bedford. Now he interviews Lord Adams Jack Adams was four years old in 1894 when his father was killed in a coal mine in Cumberland County on the west coast of England. His mother was left with nine children and no compensation for her husband's death. At the age of 12 Jack went to work as a farm laborer and at 14 he entered the mines. But Jack Adams didn't remain a coal miner. He

wanted to do something about the condition in which his mother like so many other miners wives was left when her husband was killed. He joined the Independent Labor Party of England in the iron ore miners union became eventually vice president of the Cumberland miners union and chairman of his town council. Today Jack Adams is secretary of the Cumberland Development Council a private agency and general manager of the West Cumberland Development Corporation a government agency in these capacities he is one of the men. The man according to all the rest of England who changed West Cumberland one of the worst of England's so-called depressed areas into a flourishing economy. He isn't Jack Adams anymore. On January 1st one thousand forty nine. The King of England elevated him to the peerage. The Cumberland miners boy is now Lord Adams of NATO but he still looks a little like a coal miner. Here is Milton Mayer to interview Lord Adams Lord Adams.

I'd like it very much if you tell an American audience what happened in West Cumberland Priam tonight in the West Cumberland was wealthy. In the wealth and beauty. After the first world war depression found its way into the district. Desperate efforts were made to rehabilitate employment first by mechanization then by a rationalization. We have to stand aside and watch 30 coal mines going down to five. The employment good down from 15000 to 5000. Twenty four iron ore mines where it used to seeks employment from 6000 to 1000 4B qualities to 14 quanties and employment reduced by 60 percent. That team blessed fantasies reduced to two and employment reduced by

75 percent. The economy of Cumberland then buzz that you have 15000 people only in work and all the rest of the community were unemployed there were sustained by the door under means test the soup kitchen. Charity clerks and bloggers I'm the own population became desperate until the Cumberland Development Council was formed in 1935. It was called together by a band of good people which found that the government was making no happened to solve our problems. These people formed the Council on voluntary money on the voluntary effort and it consists of all the best people in the county trade unionists councillors business people

ex-pats in all walks of life who give their help towards bringing this organization into life. And then the organization compelled the government to take option in West come and the government formed in 1936 the West Conlon Industry Development Company of which I am general manager but with unity it was to bring in your industry bring factories and works and find work for the people. We had the awful experience of having over 30000 people in the 30s and 40s who had never worked. We had the experience of seeing a grandfather being trained to work at the same time as the shop. We all show up to make provision for the women.

We'd only work for 200 women the owner of the county that asked either to go away or they had to remain at home a charge on the patterns or the charge on public funds. Well a tremendous transformation has now taken place through the efforts of these bodies and today with more than full employment we have seen the weekly wage bill go from fifty thousand pounds per week to over 600000 pounds but we we have also seen the employment rise from 15000 to well over 60000. We've seen she continued the industry she created. And in those industries a hundred and twenty new kinds of processions we educated our young people and today we are training technicians scientists put atomic energy well

trained in all forms of mechanics. We have training oil men and women and old boys and girls and with full employment we have nowhere prosperity and it does prove that in a country like these which hit your long windows Jewish tree that when your primary production when exhausted switches or on the minerals it does being possible to rebuild this area. I absolutely knew that 80 percent of the people I know we work that is totally new to the district of 14 years ago we had the experience of first getting the people dream to work prior to the Second World War when the war broke out 60 percent of those had to go back into munition work. And when the war finished we had to retrain those people but again the civil work there for that community has been trimmed three

times in 10 years and I'm sure our American cousins and cranes many of whom will have in that among us people who left this country to go to America and have settled there other than to rule what driven I would never take an American should Nish his citizenship and became citizens of another country and I know there along with her that I'm more than delighted that native land and the native West Cumberland is today a prosperous from the EPA's more spiritual people. The government did provide money to build factories. We built a factory the government rooms this straightness did not for profit but merely to cover each other going. We peer 4 percent on all money invested. And then this company is what money should buy a voluntary body. Would achieve mopey and carry on this work sure successfully. And I

am well satisfied now that the good in future to the commune to have its beautiful mountains its lyrics can all be enjoyed no for the first time but many others may join people which I do know visitors that come along to look at Opus with countryside. Lord Adams the development of West Cumberland has involved a great deal of planning the planning of an economy and the expenditure. Of a great deal of government money. In your opinion could this development have taken place. The salvation of a whole area of England economically with private funds and without a general planning programme.

It would have been impossible to replan West kill them without a general planning program and it had to be planned to preaching to the financial economy and the human economy of the dishing it would not have been possible for private enterprise alone who worked on this problem and therefore private enterprise did join with government money to solve the problem. And it's been accomplished by a joint effort whilst the government owns the fundamental things the factories are known surely that the run the money that is invested in the factories and the machinery belongs in most cases to private enterprise and if utilized by them with the same freedom as what they would have done in any other country when it was totally a totally private enterprise to work on the economy the planning was such that for the first time he know what history we have taken the work to the people and he show a plan that nobody

need trouble more than a mind to work. But the cost of this the cost of this revival of West Cumberland or Adams has fallen very heavily on the English people in the form of increased taxes. Are you worried about the tax burden. No I think when we get through the side of the burden that before all this was done we were pinned Wisconsin the government followed a few people hydel in there we're good don't under. Sure the people who were didn't disturb it was driving the people to lure listeners. But since this money has been invested it is costing the taxpayer less too dear when people are working because in turn the goodman gross taxes from the people who do work you know instead of using taxes to keep them when they were not working. Lord ADAMS One last question. You know that in America we are not

accustomed to planning on a large scale. We have a great deal of individual competitive private planning but very little government planning and government action of the magnificent sort which you have described is something unknown to us and something of which I suppose we're a little afraid. We're afraid that of too much planning too much government as a means by which a country moves in the direction of totalitarianism. Is your experience here in West Cumberland such as to give you that concern. Are you afraid of the future of England or the future of your political liberties and the possible development

in the direction of totalitarianism through increasing government activity. I am not afraid of the where were troubling the planning that is to completion Kalid has not been forced planning by a government. It has been voluntary Democratic planning with government assistance and that we will always retain in this country. I quite agree plumbers can be a new issues if they are not controlled by the people who could deliver the planning. With our democratic system we tell the plumber what we want. We don't allow the planners to tell us what to do. I have no fear that we are going to develop into a totalitarian state. I believe democracy is the strongest in this country now it's ever be. Thank you very much Laura. In this recorded program Milton Mayer has been interviewing the Duke of Bedford and Lord Adams in England. This programme was made possible under a grant from the fund for

adult education an independent organization established by the poured foundation. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This program was introduced by Norman McKee and this is the end E.B. tape network.