Page 24 Advertisements Column 5

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20412, 5 December 1931, Page 24

AUCTIONS. H. MATSON AND CO. (Extract from the "Overseas Daily Mail.") A.D. 419 A.D. 1931. HISTORY'S WARNING. o .(By Viscount 'Rotherraere.) of the most comfortable and current ~ illusions of the British race is the idea that our national affairs always come right in the end. Catch-phrases embodying this conviction are the commonplaces of conversation on political or economic subjects: "We shall muddle through somehow," says the mari-in-tlie-strect, or: "England always loses every battle except the last," or, in his moments of discouragement; "Oh, well, it'll last out my time." Up to a poipt such confidence iB undoijbfcedly a source of strength. In a crisis it keeps the public mind free from panic. But has this buoyant belief any basis in factJ Does our national experience confirm the assumption that the mere passage of time will always rescue us from an emergency and carry us steadily on to better things* If most of us had not given up reading history when we left school, fewer people "would cherish the fallacy that Britain s fortunes have had an uninterrupted record of progressive improvement from A.L I . 1 to A.D* 1031. Thoro have been crises in our past which we have completely failed to "muddle through." This cqu«try has known long eras of peace and prosperity that have ended in desolation and decay. England has never known so prolonged a period of settled government as during the three and three-quarter centuries when s.ie formed part of the Roman Empire. Between the conquest of Britain under Ihe Emperor Claudius in the middlo of the first century A.D. and the withdrawal of the last of the legions in the year 419 our country enjoyed a degree of civilisation and security such as she never knew again till modern times, This is a span of history os great as that which separates the days of Elizabeth from those of George V. During all that time the people of this island shared to the full in the material and intellectual advantages of Roman civilisation. PROUD ROMAN BRITONS. I'ew people realise how refined and agreeable conditions of life in Roman Britam were. Elementary history books give the impression that the early Britons were a repressed and resentful race kept in subjection by a Roman garrison. We remember the rebellion of Boadicea and forget the many generations of uninterrupted peace w which it was an interlude. Modern research is constantly finding fresh proof that the Britons quickly bocama Romanised They adopted the Roman language and Roman dress, and were proud of their Roman citUenship- The legions that held the Wall of Hadrian against the Pictn and Scots, or garrisoned the great fortresses at Oaerleon and Chester, on the frontier ef Wales, were largely recruited in Britain. The soldiers brought here from other parts of the Empire married British wives and brought) up their families to regard this country us their homo. By the time the wise and peaceful Roman administration ended, tho> population of the country had risei* to a level which it did not ireach again for a thousand years. Rich Britons travelled to Rome, where British fashions at one time became so popular that th» Roman ladies used to dye their hair golden in emulation of their fair visitors from the North. , Our present-day pride in British institutions and traditions, and our conviction ol their permanence, had their exact paral #1 among these ancestors of ours. _ • Like us, they boasted of their skill in craftsmanship- British builders and artisans were famous throughout Europe. The country's export trade in corn and tini »nd dyestuKs was aetive and profitable. »■ now well-dressed people in every clvi?ised city 'nsisted on bavins British doth '"m. fhg Britons who lived for all those contuses under the stable administration and sure protection of Rome, * .. lishea civilisation mu6t nave seemed as firmly rooted as our the ftn* can imaffin© a Roman nnvon wi fourth century taking a stroll along We ?! prfnted! £{ ecJ plßCent lLtr o v m wUh S tho b 9 8 e o°t the barbaric regions "hat lay outside the Roman Empire.

. NOW WE HAVE THE ELECTION OVER, LET US GET DOWN TO BUSINESS. H. MATSON and CO. <>»« th ® ir * er ' vices. They undertake the sale of LAND WOOL GRAIN «nd PRODUCE, and undertake INSURANCE of ell kind*. and generally conduct the business *>t T Stock *n| Station Firm. If: have business to transact, H. MAT SON and CO. will he pleased to have a share of it. OPULENT LONDON. Before his eye# would he lying thei »»!• ley. that carried on a regular tradebetwe.A London and the Continent. A little further downstream, behind ft city wall of such enduring masonry as only Romans T °" how to build, he could sea the roofs ol Lon. don, regarded even by him as on Wicient pity, with its well-kept, well-policed streeta ana markets, its libraries, public ®° T^. went offices and barracks, and its ritnly jur nUhed stonn bouses, equipped with central heating as efficient asour own, . Along the well-payed highway lefdiny to what we still call the Great West Road would bo pasting chariots and hope-litters, ina rich Londoners to their country-homes at Bath or Gloucester, anfl other t J® Vß ''*T* would be crossing; London Bridge on_ the r way to the Continept by Dover, or going to spend a seaside holiday at Folkestone. AN ESTABLISHED SYSTEM. And this Londoner of Roman times w °«'d reflect that wherever he chose land, whether by Watling street to the North. West, by Ermin street to Lincoln »nd XorK, by the Ickniald Way into East Anglia, or down Stane street towards Selsay Bill, he would find everywhere a system of law and order administered by the ?tnref generations; that convenient inns and travelling facilities would simplify his journey; and that he would be constantly passing prosperous farms and coming upon- market towns equipped with schools, hospitals, post Offices, and places of entertainment. Looking back over the centuries that all these things had existed, he might well have said what many people are saying to-day: What can upset a system so long and well established' . ... . Yet, as we all know, the British civilisation of that day was even then on the eve of being blotted out. From the year A.D. 419, when the last legion was called awsy to defend Rome itself against the attacks of the barbarians, the darkness that descended upon Britain was so complete that her history practically ceotcs for another lour hundred yCB "' RUIN AND DECAY, All the settled institutions that had grown up under Roman influence fell into nectty. The prosperous towns were ravaged and burnt by Saxon invadeds. The great - road* became overgrown. The arts of metal-working, jewellery, and weaving, for which Britain had been famous, were entirely lost. The country sank once more into the savagery of warring tribes, and the only traces that survived of the cultured,. comfortable lives the Roman Britons had led were the mosalp floors which are occasionally unearthed from beneath the surface of a now lonely' countryside, and the beautiful ornaments sometimes dredged up from the beds of British rivers. It would he foolish to deny the possibility of a parallel between those far-off days and tho present time. Though history seldom re, peats itself in detail, its is continually doing so in principle. The Roman-British civilisation fell when the forca upholding it was withdrawn. The British civilisation of to-day is in danger for the same reason. Our institutions which appear go durable are as completely dependent upon National Solvency as were the institutions of that earlier age upon the short swords and broad shields of the Roman legionaries. MODEKN EXTRAVAGANCE. There will be no hope for Britain If her defence of National Solvency is broken down. We owe the high standard of living which is our pride solely to the fact that in the past wa were a prosperous yet prudent notion, ai»d Jived within our means. It ig menaced now because, despite our economic depression, wo have become recklessly extravagant. I repeat to-day what I have been stating publicly for twelve years past—that unjet>s Britain achieves national solvency and establishes it upon an enduring basis, catastroph* will overtake he* *« swiftly and completely as befell ( the Britain of Iloman days, Fo r years we have been living beyond our means. We have all hut broken the back of British industry by excessive taxation. guccessiva Governments havi STfrptised aquandermanla as if it were the Wpfeme function of statesmanship, Each Party » turn has deliberately pandered to the mostielftsh inter, ests of the. electorate. Politicians iud Public alike have turned a deaf ear to aU warnings —-and now at last the inevitable 4»y of recokning has come. ifi This general election brings us the \»»t chance that we shnll get to mend the WW of our way?. ROTHEpipjß®.