NATIONAL SELF-CRITICISM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 117, 19 September 1941, Page 16

NATIONAL SELF-CRITICISM

IR,- That editorial of yours the other day about a collection of criticisms of Germany by Germans suggested several lines of thought. One is that it is exceedingly dangerous to plan campaigns and anticipate success solely upon a study of your opponent’s weakness. Another is that the English (or the British) are one of the most self-critical of peoples, and through this habit have again and again deceived their enemies. Years ago I read a story of Kipling’s called "'The Mutiny of the Mavericks," and a passage in it made a deep impression upon me. The Mutiny was what a band of Irish conspirators tried to start in an Irish regiment called the Mavericks. Kipling describes them as dwelling on the weaknesses of their enemy, England, until there seemed to be nothing but weakness, and he remarks that this is a common practice. It is. How many times in those imtervening years have I heard political party men (and women) feel quite certain that they were going to win elections, only to be confounded? They had counted up all the mistakes (or what they considered mistakes) of their opponents, and relied upon all the signs they had observed of their unpopularity until, in Kipling’s words, it seemed a miracle that® the hated party held together for an hour, What they had not done was to sit down quietly and reckon up the strength of their opponents, and then reflect that they themselves had been mixing almost entirely with supporters of their own party. I am convinced that we won’t get a durable peace until there is a change of heart in Germany. There is something fundamentally wrong with the German, and it’s got to be rooted out somehow. But you are right in saying that one could match this collection of nasty German things said about Germany with a collection of nasty English things said England. Criticism of England is

one of the major industries of England -and of the~ Dominions. Mr. Bernard Shaw has made a world-wide reputation out of it, to say nothing of a fortune! And in sixty years or so how many words has he ever written in praise of his adopted country? The bright young things of the Left lived on this industry for years. There simply wasn’t anything right with England. Everything was rotten, from social conditions to diplomacy. But surely commonsense shows that a country cannot be wholly bad or weak that (1) came through the last war as England (or Britain) did; (2) has stood up to’so much in this war; (3) has planted settlements overseas so successfully that they have all come to her aid in two wars. I mention only three points; there are many more. Britain was greater in the last war than ever before, but she is still greater today. Unfortunately this continual win-dow-dressing with the unwashed family washing has had a very deceptive, and in the outcome a disastrous, effect abroad. Foreigners have read the things that have been said by Englishmen about England and come to the conclusion that John Bull is old and feeble and corrupt. But don’t let us confine ourselves to England. Look at the United States. Suppose you had judged America solely by American satirists. Suppose you had added up all the scandals and weaknesses noticeable in the United States in the last generation — graft and crime and lynchings and exploitation by capital, all the evident fruits of a conscienceless materialism. What. an indictment you could have made! But would it be a true picture of the United States and its people? Of course it wouldn’t. If we didn’t realise this then, we should realise it to-day. Let us bear in mind the old saying that while a divorce suit is news, a happy marriage isn’t, and keep both social conditions in their proper propor tion, both in themselves and as symbola

A.

M.

(Wellington).