ENGLAND YET!

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1926, Page 4

ENGLAND YET!

! y“ Sydney Herald.”) j According to a message published, a German journalist, the London correspondent of a leading .Berlin newspaper, lias been making some uiieompiiinen- •! tarv remarks about England. He says that conditions there resemble those which obtained in the Homan Empire | during the decline. “ Bread and cir--1 cases ” have their counterpart in doles and sport. In the AVest End are luxury and extravagance; in the East, misery ami unemployment. Eroticism ’ is the characteristic of the theatre and effeminacy nf the youth of England. .The causes which brought about the fall ■ f Home, lie concludes, may also I involve the ruin of the British Empire, j The observant gentleman might have noted that the same phenomena can he discerned in many countries, including his own. Sport, for example, is making immense strides on the Continent, and this" is usually regarded as a healthy sign. . Sport, like many other good things, can he overdone, hut within reason it is a most beneficial influence. .During the general strike it was common for teams of police and strikers to play against each other at football. That indicates the spirit of a nation addicted to games! When that sort of thing can happen there is not much wrong with the temper of the British people. Again, has there been no poverty in Germany? If not, her constant appeals tad misericordiam are a hollow pretence. Are There no profiteers who ostentatiously squander thenwar fortunes? , it may- he admitted that sex is too prominent in contemporary English drama. But it. should he remembered that the most successful .productions in recent years have been plays such as “Ahraliam Lincoln.” “Saint Joan,” and “ The Devonshire Wife,” which are absolutely free from any traces of eroticism. And Germany is hardly in a position to throw stones. In Berlin effusions which no English manager would dream of presenting are staged without let or hindrance and are acclaimed as masterpieces.

No doubt some of the symptoms of decadence exhibited by Imperial Home are to be’found in Britain, but it does not follow that this critic’s deduction is warranted. His premises are faulty for the circumstances of the two Empires are entirely different. It is a mistake to suppose that a licentious plutocracy and a policy of bread and c-ircuses alone were responsible for the eclipse of Rome. Many other factors contributed. Not the least important was the prevalence of malaria, which, becoming endemic in Southern Ttaly, enfeebled the national stock. Another was the instability of government. Rival Homan forces exhausted each other bv civil war. .Heigns were short. Emperors climbed to the throne by assassination. and vacated it through the sSine agency. It was rare for Caesar to die in his bed—unless perchance, "lie was murdered there while sleeping. Between 211 A.D. and 2,81 A.D. no less than twenty-three Emperors sat in the seat oPAugustus, and twenty-one of them met with violent deaths. Tu 237-238 A!D. six Emperors perished-in the course of a few iritmths. The provinces, ground down .by merciless taxation and Sullen, were a broken reed when the Empire had to be defended. On the frontiers the barbarians maintained a ceaseless pressure, and the Romans, whose martial quality had deteriorated were not able to withstand their irruptions. It ill becomes a. German to suggest that the

British .-have lost their military virtue. In fine Rome fell .from a combination of causes, s, and no moral that is drawn from Rome’s fate can be applied to the British Empire. Nevertheless, without agreeing .with I our critic’s .prognosis, we .may sometimes wonder in our heart of hearts whether-Britain may not .have passed her zenith, and be entering upon a silver age. But we must not forget that there has been a great war. Let us east our minds back a hundred years or so. The Napoleonic war. of course, was more .protracted than the Great War, but the effort it demanded was. infinitesimal-by comparison. The nation at large was not greatly affected. and went its normal ways. Yet that war. although the dislocation it entailed was far less serious, had a hitter aftermath.. Everyone had thought that peace would bring prosperity. Actually the years which immediately followed Waterloo were among the most anxious and unhappy periods in Britain’s domestic history. So wide-spread and long-continued was the unrest that pessimists believed I that Britain would go under. They feared a revolution on the lines of the | French, just as to-day we talk of a I communist menace. With the drop in prices the agricultural interests were cruelly bit. The towns, also, were in evil case. The troubles of the manufacturing were as great as those' of the rural classes. “ The cessation of hostilities had put an end to the unnatural expansion of industries which had profited by our war expenditure. . . in many trades, too, over-speculation on the part of employers of labour led to distress. . . The struggle had so drained the resource's of France, Russia. Spain and Germany that they had little, or no money to'buy luxuries or even necessaries. . . Hence came bankruptcies and wholesale dismissal of operatives at home. The labour market.was at the same time affected by the disbanding of many scores of thousands of soldiers and sailors. As many as 250.000 men were released from service in 1816-17-18.” Cannot every word of that quotation from Professor 0. W. Oman be applied mutatis mutandis to the situation in 'Britain to-day’? And since the late war. was fought upon a much greater scale the reaction is correspondingly greater. To complete the parallel, there was the loose moral code of the times of the Regency—a passing p’bpse. Yet England survived. Knglnnd -weathered the storm. England emerged from those dark years stronger than ever. Wc mav be confident she will do so again. ‘‘England is England yet!”