EXPANSION OF BRITISH RACE

Chronicle (Levin), 8 January 1947, Page 8

EXPANSION OF BRITISH RACE

GOOD OLD DAYS NOW GONE l . POR EVERi. Comment ou-the unique expansion of thaBritisli race dnd on its present posi tion in world affairs was made in a broadcast talk given on Eunday night by MT. Charles Garrington, formerlv of Christchurch, now educational manager of the Cambridge University Pyess. "Ten generatious ago," he said, '• ' the British race, with v'hich I iuelude the Irish, consisted of something less ^han 7,000,000 persons living in a small *roup of islands olf the coast of Europe. Quite suddenly they began to change their habits. They multiplied aud thev scattered, with such speed as has never been equalled by any other race in history. At the end of ten generatious this process slackeued and st-opped. And ao adequate explanation has been given for its beginning' — or its end. ' ' "Story Nqw Finished." The British race, Mr. Carrington eonlinued, now consisted of 140,000,000 more or less, of wliom two thirds lived outside their original home. By far the great er part of the Irish and a considerabJe majority of the Scots liad gone overseas for good. The Euglish Avere uiore evenly divided between the old countries and the new. It had hardly been noticed that these British migi'ants had oceupied every" single region in the whole world that was empty 300 yearS ago and that had a temperate climate. There lmd been nothing like this, and there eould be nothing like it in the history of other empires. It was unique, and it was a biological, not a political, event. War and conquest had very little to do with it. But the stor^ was now finished. In

no part of the Anglo-Saxon world was the birth-rate high enough to make such a process possible in the next guneration. The fact must be faced that the good old days were gone for ever. Sad Days for Liberty. Politics did not make the British Commonwealth, and politics would not hold it together in these diflicult days. It was made by the natural expansion of a people, and was lield together by their devotion to an idea. Our empire buihling had reaehed inaturity. ' 1 On the whole, Avlren "we look round the world," said Mr. Carrington "these are sad days for liberty. Very little oi it is to be seen anywhere outside the English-speaking world. Then all the more it is our duty to maintain the raoral unity of those nations to whom free priiiciples qome by right of bjrth The sale of books, the growtli oi' libra ries, the free exchange of ideas between scientists and schoJars, between univr Sities and teehnical institutes— these invade no^ man 's rights, stir up no-poli tical jealousies, afid may yet save eivilisatibft." '