Prophets of Gloom

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 428, 5 September 1947, Page 5

Prophets of Gloom

E.were surprised, when we began to collect the i. material on page 6, to dishow frequently the end of Britain had been forecast by so many of her wisest sons. The timid we always have with us, as ‘well as the foolish and the ignorant; but it is encouraging to know that destruction can be announced by the wise and brave and still not arrive. We must of course Fallow for the fact hat men can "s be sages in one field and simpletons in another; that the biggest men can be occasionally very small; and that miracles of recovery do sometimes happen. But ‘when we concede points like those, and a multitude more, it is still cheering to reflect that Britain sutvived Cobbett, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Burke, Hardy, and Sam Johnson-to mention only a few of the doctors who at one time or another sentenced her to death -and to remember that recovery usually came quickly. It is true that the world has been more widely disturbed during the last few years than for a century or two, and Britain more severely strained. Until science came to their aid men were not able to do. as much damage i in a year as they can now do in a week, and if brave hearts quailed at the introduction of paper money or the repeal of the Corn Laws the same hearts must be thumping to-day. But the chances are at least nine in ten that they are thumping needlessly. The lesson of the past is that most of those who panickéd died all. their deaths for nothing. Britain recovered, Europe recovered, the whole world recovered-even if it was only to try suicide again. So, black though the outlook now Yis, mo@ern history at least is on out side. Civilisations may have vanished. But the only civilisation modern man has known is in no worse €ase at present than a strong man in bed with lumbago, incapable of finding a comfortable Position, and more than a little dubious | of his doctor. 4