England's "Moral Splendour."

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17645, 23 December 1922, Page 12

England's "Moral Splendour."

Dickens gave to the language a word that stands for English insularity and self-satisfaction. "Podsnappery" means the world of Mr Podenap—"not "a very large world, morally; no, nor " erven geographically, seeing that al"though, his business was sustained "upon commerce with other countries, '' he considered other countries, with "that important reservation, a " mistake, and of their manners " and customs would conclusively " observe, 'Not English' t "When, Presto! "With a flourish of the arm, and "a flush of the face, they would be "swept away." We cannot, however, think of a word that expresses the opposite to "Podsnappery"- i -entire dissatisfaction with one's own country, coupled with a preference, sneaking'or boldly mispressed, for others. W. S. Gilbert pilloried "the idiot who praises, " with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this..and. evarj country but his own,"

but he did not furnish us with a singlev.ord term for the type. That type is 'becoming numerous end clamant enough to be a nuisance and a dang3r. • .the Podsnaps us<jd to bo the nuisance and the danger, and helped to promote a reaction of undiscriminating abuse. Ihe i real patriot, the man who saw his country's faults, sometimes hesitated to acclaim its virtues for fear of swelling the Podsnap chorus. Indoubtedl.y there was a very great body of honest laudation which, by its exclusion of the spots in the sun, inculcated a wrong idea of national and Imperial astronomy. The pendulum, however, seems to hare swung in the other direction, and there is need to-day of a straightforward declaration of belief in British virtues and faith in British dostiny. We have the chief labour journal in Now Zealand saying that the break-up of the British Empire would be a good thing for the world; a leading official of the party declaring that the Empire stands for greed and spoliation; and: an English writer of note has just published a satire in verse in which, according to a reviewer in the "Man- '' chesto Guardian,'' the English are uepieted as "a besotted lot of shams and " money-grubbers, and there is no virtue ,: in us. Our souls have been filched " from us by capitalists, newspaper proprietors, and scoundrelly politicians." It is a little curious that he who finds nothing good in England is content to live there and make a living out of the benighted English, but Shaw set this fashion long ago.

Let us tutn from these my-country-is-cverything-that-is-vile critics, <md consider a testimonial given recently to England and the English by ft foreigner who has lived in England for more than twenty years, and has had exceptional opportunities of judging the nation. Mr Edward Price Bell, London correspondent of the "Chicago Daily News sine© 1900, sent, on hia departure for America in October, a farewell letter to "The Times." England, he-said, had been homo to his family. "As all " who know her must love her, we love " her. If we have fallen under the spell " of her physical beauty, we have fallen " yet more deeply under the spell of her " moral splendour. She has done things " immeasurably great in the world; still " greater tasks await her hand, They "speak of her ae old; in truth she is "young—just at the beginning of her "organised Imperial progress towards "a freer, safer, and happier deinoov"racy." To all who are interested in Anglo-American relations Mr Bell is known as an indefatigable and most earnest worker in the cause of fuller and deeper friendship, so it was to be expected that foe would follow such a tribute to England with a reaffirmation of his faith. "My supreme political <te- " sir© is, and for very many years has " been, that the power of the Brttish "Empire and 'the power of the United) I "States ehftll bo consolidated for the " good of themselves and of the world. "Strong as both are, neither alone is "sufficient." So American journalism will be strengthened on the spot by who will take every' opportunity to dispel the masa of ignorajioe and prejudice about England that etists'iu America, England's "moral splendour" !-; A thousand international iste will rush, to their desks to pour soom upon the veiry idea. A thousand examples, of moral obliquity will be presented. On© may oonoede the truth of many of these without surrendering an inch of ground. The paramount importance of England, and ofthe TTnited States, in the world of international problems to-day, consists precisely 1 of moral strength and moral possibilities. Neither England nor America possesses in character all the world needs. England can learn from the French, the Germans, and! the Americans, to name no other peoples. Buithe special value of England in the \ world now—a world distracted haustion and suspicion <uid hate—is that our Motherland is the chief repository of toleration and fellowship, of divine compromise and priceless common-sense, and of the Bpirit that crusades for higher ideals in national and international affairs. The worst blight upon the world today i is hate, but the Englishman is the world's poorest hater. His country'is the buttress of the League of Nations; without'it the League could not live. The mother of a chain of self-governing democracies, England 1 is, with America, the chief guardian of the democratio principle. But though America is the world's largest Republic, it has not spread the idea and practice of representative, responsible government as England has done, and its "white man's burden " in the Philippines is a small thing compared with the vast responsibility of India. No nation in history has attempted what England is attempting in India today; one wonders how much ignorance lies at the back of the parrot-cry of self-determination for three, hundred million people fissured by innumerable differences of colour, creed and language, t and whether white self-deter-minists ever «reflect what wbuld happen if (Britain suddenly laid down her trust. We must be careful to do justice'to . the idealism and the crusading spirit in America, anS not ■ make the mistake of regarding them as overlaid by materialism. The American people, howj ever, are more detached from the central problems of the world than are | the British and their foreign responsi- ; bilities are lees. , They are passing • through the same kind of period of '■disillusionment as the English, but unI like tlie English, they are able to hold aloof. They are, moreover, & less homogeneous people, and the internal problems of their huge country are absorbing. But the impulse to ; idealism is there, and he must be without faith who does not believe that some day it will be directed, as it was from 1917 to 1919, towards the saving of the world. The American peqple, or the beet of them, also resemble the English in this, that they are better f.han their rulers. The reputation of

the English Government does not stand high abroad to-day. Something of its reputation for honesty has been lost: and there may bo possibilities of highly disagreeable revelations in its part in the Greek debacle. But behind the Government 6tands a sound nation, passionate, for peace, yet not pacifist, ready for friendship, anxious to make the League of Nations a success; wise in the "conviction that progress is inipotaible on a basis of suspicion and subpeople slow to hate and quick to forgive, weak sometimes in its lack of logic but sometimes magnificently strong through the same defect, a people whose courage and endurance and wisdom will prove, to be proportionate to its responsibilities.