RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 281, 22 August 1940, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current

Events

(By Kickshaws.)

Churchill says the House of Commons is thinking victory. You aren’t in bad company.

.Arrangements have been made, it is said, for zoo animals to visit the Wellington library. This seems to be overdoing the democratic principle.

Churchill declares that co-operation between Britain and America is like a great river flowing steadily on. "1 cannot alter it even if I wished,” said Mr. Churchill, who went on to explain that, the unification of the two huge English-speaking nations of the world was wholly benign and inevitable. One might indeed go a step further and add that whenever these two powerful world factors have been out of step it has permitted wholly malignant influences to play an evil role. Mr. Churchill’has in his recent speech intuitively promulgated a prophecy concerning Britain and zAmerica. Governments all over the British Empire might do their best to implement the inevitable. Nothing but good can come from the drawing together of these vast peoples. They represent the very foundations upon which the world may build for the future with the least possible waste.

Historians have deplored the series of events on the part of Britain which contributed in the eighteenth century to the parting of the new world from the old. One cannot judge facts of this nature while they are happening or hope, subsequently, to read upon the tablets of time writing which mortal eyes are unable to perceive. Indeed, It is hardly yet possible to decipher the writings of destiny that were for ever impressed on these tablets by the influences that drove our kith and kin in America to revolt. That action, indeed, caused all the history of present time to be written, although in the gloomy days of 1777 there was nobody to read it. History merely tells us that in 1777 Britain had sunk so low there seemed no chance she could ever rise again. She had been struck low by her own offspring in the new world. None can claim that Britain deserved aught else. We may, however, take heart that history proved that Britain was far from done. Indeed. there was victory in defeat.

We all are taught the sad series of events which led to the American colonies setting up house on their own. When England was fighting allcomers for tiie right to colonize the Americas British traders in those areas were unwilling to forgo profits made by trading with enemies. The colonial governments were. controlled by these traders. A situation had been reached in which the traders on the spot wanted all the profits but no responsibility toward security—all the chocolates but no medicine. It was but natural for British taxpayers to expect the colonial communities in zVmerica to contribute something toward their own expenses. The burden of debt was heavy. Unfortunately the British Government lost patience. Thus started a sad series of events which at least emphasized that a wise and practical policy would have been to have given responsibility to the young communities leaving them to carve their own destiny : and pay for it. Thus was learned the lesson upon which the British Empire grew and flourished.

If British statesmen had not learned their lesson over the young colonies in America, the destiny of the Commonwealth of Empire must inevitably have been postponed many centuries. Our own New Zealand would never have survived the pangs of birth. Britain, moreover, learned another lesson. George 111, in 1760, decided to Tun England as if it were a European principality. He corrupted Parliament. He chose inferior ministers ready to do his bidding. Indolence and corruption produced a situation akin to that which was a prelude to the present collapse of France. Fate had in store for Britain a fearful punishment. General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga iu October, 1777. France attacked Britain on the sea and threw .her military might into the cause of the American colonists. Spain followed the lead set by France. Holland and a league of other States rallied to Russia and disorganized the blockade. England thus was confronted with a world war. She lost control of the sea. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. In the subsequent peace of Versailles Britain, utterly humilltated, had learned wisdom.

When the humiliation of Britain was at its lowest, after the American revolution, those who lived at the time prophesied the end of Britain. She was doomed, they said, to sink to a fifth rate power. Never again would she be a world power. The fates which control the destinies of nations, however, had planned otherwise. Bourbon France, though victorious, became bankrupt as a result of the heavy expenses of the war. She sank into the miseries of the French Revolution, taking Spain down with her. Britain put her house in order. The evils of corruption had become manifest. Then was introduced a system of government, civil service and treasury control which made corruption difficult. Parliament made it impossible for a king as an individual to be able to wreck the Empire. Britain produced a system of government which exposed its own defects, laborious as it seems today. From time to time weaknesses were exposed and altered. This process is not yet ended.

We must indeed thank America for the lessons which today will prevent Britain going the way of France. In the last-named country these lessons were not even learned after Sedan. Intelligence without wisdom is a ship without a rudder. Moreover, the fates which control the destiny of nations had arranged that Britain should not liecome bankrupt after the revolt of the American States —only humilitated. Boulton and Watt had been inspired to harness steam to work for Britain. At the moment that British .statesmen wore signing the humiliating treaty nt Versailles, Kay, Crompton, Arkwright and Cartwright had combined to give Britain a practical mechanical loom. Watt gave ft power. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a radiating force issued from Britain which stirred the uttermost depths of the world. Ships brought raw material from the wide world to Britain, where it was woven or wrought and returned to all parts of the world. Far from growing bankrupt, Britain became vastly rich. Is it now written t upon the tables of destiny that Britain and her American cousins shall prepare themselves for a closer unity than any that could have come before. In this mighty river, to which Churchill refers, shall be blended all the best that has been created in our own Empire by the intellect and wisdom of our forbears, plus a new spirit which, for one and a. half centuries, has been nurtured in the "new world.”