IS EMPIRE GOING TO THE DOGS?

Shannon News, 9 March 1926, Page 1

IS EMPIRE GOING TO THE DOGS?

_J -+ A WARNING FROM MR BALDWIN Mr Baldwin, Premier of Great Britain, whatever his other limitations, has a remarkable faculty for speech-making of the classical type. In sonorous phrases he can delve into history and light on a situation that seems to be parallel with some particular situation of to-day. Then he proceeds more or less aptly to point the moral. That was the case last month when he had an address to deliver at the Middle Temple Hall. From a full report of the speech now to hand, Mr. Band win appears to have dwelt with grave emphasis on the lesson of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. There were fears among those responsible for government to-day, he said, that the Great War, by the destruction of our best lives in such numbers, had not left enough cf the breed to carry on the work of the Empire. "Who in th e Empire does not know that one more war in the West and the civilisation of the Ages would fall with as great a shock as ! (hat of Rome?” Comment on this statement was wide and varied; One London jour- 1 nai remarked that, even if England | was to suffer decline as compared) with the uprising of other nations, there would surely still be sturdy descendants in the young Dominions, which were more and more assuming the status of independent Republics. The "Daily Mail” was not inclined to share Mr Baldwin’s pessimism. The parallel between th e British and the Roman Empires was, it said not a close one. For one thing, the Roman Empire was a very longtime going to the dogs (if it ever went to them). “It certainly endured 700 years in the West before it showed any signs of breaking up. The British Empire is now barely 350 years old, so that if the process which the Prim e Minister detected, or thought he detected, is repeated, our Empire should still have another 350 years or so to survive.” .

And from that line of thought people are at liberty to derive what satisfaction they will. «■ Even to croakers the prospect of calamity at the end of another 350 years must appear hardly, worth any considerable anxiety.