THE GOSPEL OF PESSIMISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 8

THE GOSPEL OF PESSIMISM.

Dean Inge does his best to justify the remark that the future historian will perhaps describe this period as the age of pessimism. Indeed, he seems to merit that description of a pessimist which says that of two evils he will choose both. In his latest lament he sees the financial reserves of Great Britain exhausted, her naval supremacy vanished, and her Empire fallen to pieces. Confidence in enterprise, he says, is gone, and there is nothing left but a vast and ever-increasing army of parasites, paid by the State not to work. Long before the civilisation of ancient Egypt had attained its zenith there were similar prophets of doom lamenting the decay of Egyptian greatness and writing "Teliabod" on the portals of it« temples. It was before the glories of the reigns of David and Solomon that the wife of Pliinehas twice declared that the glory was departed from Israel. Herodotus loved to dwell on the transient nature of prosperity, and he says that because Croesus thought himself the happiest of mankind therefore he came to sorrow. The Dean's contentions hardly need refutation. Xo country has met, her financial difficulties in a braver spirit than Great Britain, and her credit stands a.s high as ever it did. She has shown wonderful resource in developing new industries. Nor is it true to say that our naval supremacy has vanished. In tonnage and gun power we may no longer be supreme, but in the sea spirit no nation can touch us. Before the war the Germans thought Britain was a decadent nation, that the Dominions were anxious to throw o£f_ all allegiance, that the youth of the Empire was given over to luxury and self-indulgence. They found their mistake, and the spirit which carried us through the fiery days of war will yet carry us through the difficulties and perplexities of the new world that is , emerging irom the old* —IfcM.