ARE WE APPROACHING WAR?

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 125, 12 June 1937, Page 11

ARE WE APPROACHING WAR?

Dean Inge Thinks Not

" The rovolutionary is always .-trying to. build a tree, which cannot be done, especially as he wants to built it without roots. • "I know what the critics say — that the great schools of art and literature have achieved all that can be done on those lines. Every 'art can develop untdl it reaehes its culmination, and no f urther. Greek 6culpture reached one kind of perfection; are we merely to" copy it, knoAving that our copies must ahvays be inferior to the originals? "So with arch'itecfcure and painting and even with poetry. We cannot surpass Raphael or Milton or the builders of Chartres. Are we to be only laugh- 1 ed. at and abused if we try idopiethi|pg new?" — The Very Rev. W. R. Inge, D.D., in his new book, "A Rustic Moralist." There will-be many who will be grate-: ful that Dr. Inge, now that he is no longer Dean of St. Paul's, is devoting some of his leisure to the writing of books. His new volume, "A Rustic Moralist," reveals that his vigour of style is still maintained. f "There are one or two prophecies which I shall be rash enough to make," says Dr. Inge in his preface. "The opinion on the Continent is that we are -• apprqaching a new • and terrible European- war. - Here again. I will liave the . co.urago of my opinions "and say that I do not believe it. The conditions * are ' quite "unlike . those of •1914. Then all he great 'nations were rich; their credit stoodihigh. AAlthough the cost of- the/ war fars;surpassed all expectations, they found it _ possible to finance it by borrowihg.Y ' V"But most. of . the war. debts ' were repudiated, so .that in futiire no one will look on war loan as an investmen't. At the present tiine, all the nations which might be sus'pected of desiring war) except Russia^ are virtually bankrupt.'.We are often told that a nation can always pay 'its . soldiers as it goes along. I do not" believe it. I do not believe that either Germany or Italy could finance a great war. Germany is in such a .plight financially that 1 have grave doubts1 whether the Hitler regime can last out the year, and Italy is not in a much better "cas'e. Italian militarism seems to be merely a perverted romauticism liko that which brouglit Napoleon to his ruin. A revival of the Mediterranean empire of ancient Rome is a fantastic dream. The condition for its realisation does not exist. "Nor could Germany attack Russia, which would be aided by Erance with any chance of success. Russia, ■ which is moving cautiously in the direction of an industrial and peasant republic, is more stablo, both politically and financially, than Germany, where a declaration of war would release a huge volume of violent discontent against the existing regime. The German bayonets are not for use against

Erance, still less against ourselves. Tho Geraans are honestly afraid of the immense Russian Army and of a Communist rising within their own • . border." * "By all means let them try something new," Dr. Inge goeB on after" the sentences quoted at the begimiing of this page in his chapter on Ugliness. "I can admire some of the skyscrapers of ISIew4 York, and still more the new town hall -at Stockholm. I appreciate the brutal but effe'ctive swagger of the railway station at .Milan. r* "There may; be "successful new experiments in painting and sc'ulpture, and in music, which I, unluckily) do not understand. But this , plea does not touch deliberate ugliness. . ' ' . ' •"An . age of science „ought, ife ara sometimes told, to have its distinctivo -forms of art. Some would add that an age of equality ought to have it® ow;tl art. But this is difficult. • Uniformity is always' "really ugly. " Compare ' an • old-fashioned village, such a» that where I1" live, with the. - monotonpus . rows of small. housee, all exactly alike, which. are now springing.up. • ' - " "A countryside spottedall over 'with > ' bungaloid growths must make an artiat sigh. for the bad old -times when the rich man in his castle lived in a noble park} and the poor man at his gate had a picturesque blapk and white cottage, which, extern'ally at least, was a thing' of beauty, ' "As for a possible allianco betwech • Science and Beauty^ was j there any, symbolio meaning in that unfortunate scandal on Olympus^ - described^ by/i Homer ? ; \ •' / • • • '"Aphrodite' (Venus)i the • goddess love -and'. beauty, was : a vwife of Heph.aestu8..(Yu|can.), a very able,' praetical 1 . scientist, but Y'unhappily •; lame' ; and rather dirfcy. Aphro'dite was uhfaithful to him, and had "an , aff air . with , Ares (Mars)} the dashing* and handsom* war-god. Hephaestus found "them' together; he enclosed them. in. a net," . and invited all the gods and "go^dessea to.cbnle and see. The gods came and enjoyed the joke hugely, ' but 'the lady god.desses,' says Nomer)' ,'remained*. eaeli'in her house for, shame.f . v, t.". "Well, is there any " .chance that Hephaestus, no longer lame \or dirty, may make it up - with . Aphrodite, n,owi • that Mars, as we hope, will soon b« permanently caged, or expelled from OlympusF' ' • - :- (,"Some will .say • that I take these exhibtions of bad .tfisto. far: too • sbri- - ously. They may be only,.a- passing fashion. But if our age is really resolved to heap scorn on. alj ;that iu'ankind have loved and admired since they began to find in Beauty a vision bf God, we must be prepared, for what in very old-fashioned language was called the coming of Antichri&t." • The author writes , on psychology, of other topics. The contemporary history, science, literature, and a host scene is never overlooked, and Dr. Inge, whatever the past history of the subject on which he writes, contrives . to give a message for the dayv