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Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4948, 8 March 1926, Page 3

IS THE BREED DYING? Or EMPIRE DANGER SIGNALS. BEST LIVES GONE IN WAR. The British Prime Minister, Mr Stanley Baldwin, in his . presidential, address ,to the Classical Asslociation at Middle Temple Hall, London, paid that , above and beyond cries against the burden of armaments and the weight of taxation, dangerous and symptomatic as they wereT there was greater cause of anxiety. i,t would appear almost .that hupian stock was! like the stock of fruit trees, where the best kinds tended to work themselves out after many generations of useful and productive pervice. Dr. Mickail, in one of his recent essays, had laid fresh stress on this point when he said there were not enough Romans left to carry on the work of Rome. A gradual atrophy of intellectual energy" and public spirit spread over the body politic and the instinct, of self-government was lost. . There are fears' (continued Mr Baldwin) among those who are responsible for Government to-dav, fears not yet gripping us by the throat, but taking grisly shape in the twilight, that the Great War, by®the destruction of our best lives in such numbers, has not left enough of the breed to carry on the work of the Empire. Our task is hard enough, but it will be accomplished ; yet who, in Europe, does not know that one more, war in the West and the civilisation of the Ages will fall with as great a shock as that of Rome? She has left danger signals along the road, it is for us to read them. When Rome had run her course the torch came into other hands until, after many centuries, it was parsed to us, the youngest son. Our race was not yet run. But we should run more worthily" so. long as we based our lives bn the stem virtues of the Roman character and took’ to oursielves the warnings that she left for our guidance.