Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

THE FINAL YEARS 173

University; the art historian Dr. Sudhin Ghose; Sir John Pratt, former ConsulGeneral and authority on China; the pioneer educationalist George Lyward; Campbell Stewart, who was later to become Vice-Chancellor of Keele University; Archbishop Anthony Bloom of the Russian Orthodox Church; Canon Carpenter, who was later to become Dean of Westminster Abbey; the author Naomi Mitchison; Dr. Karl Konig, the founder of the Camphill movement for the treatment of handicapped children; and Martin Buber, who had been connected with the Blutbund.

Mitrinovic played no active, public part in the Renaissance Club initiative, mainly for reasons of health. However, some of his associates made attempts to arouse public interest in the kind of new age thinking that had informed the New Britain movement. Thus, in the summer of 1948 a symposium was held at the Swedenborg Hall in London under the title of “British Renaissance and National Senate.” Organised by members of the New Europe Group under the name of British Renaissance Initiative, the aim of the symposium was to discuss the contemporary relevance of such themes as monetary reform, workers’ control in industry, devolution and federation. Later that summer, on August 6th, the Swedenborg Hall was the venue for another British Renaissance Initiative—a meeting commemorating the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which was addressed by Professor Soddy. In his opening remarks the chairman, Charles Purdom, observed that “Hiroshima was one of the most shameful acts in History. The use of the atomic bomb is an act of materialism; a denial of spiritual values and a denial of human brotherhood.” Also in 1948 a New Europe Group delegation led by Professor Soddy attended the Congress of the European Union of Federalists at Rome. The last public event to take place under the name of the New Europe Group was also the last public appearance of Mitrinovic on February 17, 1950, when he delivered a statement at a lunch-time press conference under the rather abstruse title of “Proposals towards a world system of foreign policies, severely impartial proposals and integrally inclusive.”

Throughout the war years and immediately afterwards Mitrinovi¢ had continued working on his ideas for settling world problems. His guiding principle was to look at these problems constructively and imaginatively as a whole rather than merely as a collection of unrelated problems; each to be solved independently from all the others. He maintained that the only lasting way to win a war was for the victor to take over the chief virtue of the vanquished. This implied that Britain, the arch-exponent of acting from expedience and ‘muddling through, should start to plan and act from rationally thought out principles. As for Germany, it should cease to be