MR BALDWIN ON CHARACTER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3464, 7 April 1930, Page 2

MR BALDWIN ON CHARACTER.

A RECTORIAL ADDRESS

Air Stanley Baldwin spent his Christmas vacation preparing and delivering two or three orations. One line effort was devoted to Sir Walter Scott. !u a speech this week to the students .>1 Glasgow University as Lord Rector, Mr Baldwin made “Character” the subject of his address. As lie said, a statesman has one peculiar qualification for such a task. .“His life is spent in dealing with men among facts, or with facts among men.” Beginning with a passage reminiscent of the opening poem in A. E. Housman’s “Shropshire Lad,” describing the beacons which were lit on the hills of the west country in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in

1887, Mr Baldwin said that the memory of the beacon fires reminded linn that history was still being written in letters' of fire and blood. During the four years of the World War men climbed to the doors of heaven and sank to the gates of hell. Afterward the new world came, and many did not know it. Complacency, rightly or

wrongly considered to be a characteristic ol the Victorian age, perished with much else in the war, and gave place to introspection and .seif-ques-tioning, doubts and fears, only too natural when the appalling tension ol four years was suddenly relaxed, and industry, which had been working in a ring fence in defiance of every economic law, had once more to adapt itself to the conditions imposed bv international competition. 1 hough the, map of tho Continent had been redrawn, and though the experiment of democracy or still newer government was being tried in nearly every country in Europe, it might well be that in the future, near or distant, the changes in the British Empire overseas would most affect the world. Ibe war, us in so much else, had merely hastened a process already begun: a century of evolution had been compressed into half a decade. The great ■dominions had become autonomous; they were in every respect equal partners with the- Mother Country ; the link was the Crown, not parliament. The Empire represented a League ol Nations of its own, which kept the peifoe oyer a quarter of the globe it-self.-'and among a quarter of the inhabitants thereof. Of that Empire the i great majority of its population was? found in India, which lor niuiumbetect centuries had been the battlefield of Asia, and to which the fax Britannica” had brought the people a peace of which they had never dreamed. Would it bo an exaggeration to view the Empire as the Roman Empire seemed to Gibbon —the one fixed point in the firmament; the one rock against which tho waves might beat in, vain? . ... “What,” asked Mr Baldwin, “will the historian of a millennium hence have to Say of tho British Empire in 1930? Even to us, old in constitutional government, old in time and experienced beyond other nations, representative government based on universal suffrage lias come as in a night. On us lies a responsibility greater than lias been laid on any other country, for we have not only to learn to govern ourselves, but also we show' many races alien to us in language, in custom, and in tradition, old in their own culture, how to apply our methods ol self-government to their own peoples. And more; to us are looking with expectation tho indigenous inhabitants of Africa, confident in our power to <nve them peace and justice, and to help them to raise themselves in Die scale of civilisation. While this work goes on, the work ot generations, peihaps of centuries, the world is contracting, and scientific invention, by Hying, by wireless, by the motor-car, by films, and by the gramophone is jostling the peoples of the world together? He would he a hold prophet who would tell us whether these things will make for the eleyation of mankind or for its degradation. As 1 Have spoken of the' Roman Empire, 1 would remind you of the words used by ‘ mo of the greatest Homan people—l aci Imponere morem’ —‘To rear upon peace character.’ You get the same thought in Ennius, ‘Moribus stat res Homaiia ‘On character the Roman State is founded.’ It wus beenuse these Avoids were forgotten, because the Homan ;characten perished, that the empiie perished, and the world was plunged again into barbarism. “Character is the foundation of the British iiiiupire. Unless we bui ton tne ancient virtues of duty, truth, and patriotism, our experiment in demo-' cracy would fail and the dissolution ol our Empire would bo a question ol years, i speait on purpose oi patriotism, because, rightly used, it is a potent force lor good. At its best it is a noble virtue. ft derives strength from the tact that it is a fundamental primitive instinct —an instinct common to Higher and lower civilisations, attaching itself to the earnest memories of enn-uood, to tne lieicis and woods and streams among which we grew up. Hie Highest iouu of human altruism has been inspired by patriotism. inot only ni soldiers and sailors, but also in scholars, engineers, and business men, service ol tueir country has been the deepest motive of thenwork. the vt\orid is ennciied by the several contributions oi nations. it seeius to m e that depreciation of patriotism cannot really help, but may rather hinder, international co-opera-tion. You cannot make the world better by abandoning one ol the most powerful motives to noble' action Unit the world has yet known. It is not unlike the efforts of those—and we have ail met them —who think that i they can hasten the day of tho Brotherhood of Man by being rude and oifeasive to the members of their own family. “But we must never forget that patriotism is not ah excellent concept; it is au emotion, and it is therefore capable of being enlisted or exploited for ignoble ends. It is, indeed, the ‘last refuge of a scoundrel,’ when it is used as m cloak of avarice amidol the spirit of domination. Pure patriotism, which asks nothing, ami seeks nothing, which gives service because ib ‘can no more,’ is a necessary ingredient o 1 Hie character upon which a great democracy is built. Indeed, d the word' h e used m its widest sense and in its highest, it comprises L®e whole duty ol j man as a citizen.'

"Truth -.seems to bo such a simple tiling, hut, perhaps, it is the one virtue more quickly pushed out ol I lie way and trampled on than all theothei virtues rolled into one. We Faiglish and Scots hold iti in high regard, and our most valuable international asset is that our word is still regarded as our holm. The time came when the Homan word could no longer i»e trusted : that was the beginning of the end. Men have survived breaches ol lailh in domestic polities; no Umpire could -survive a breach of faith between two of its component parts. Now. d I be right in my contention that national elm ranter is I he only Inundation on which an abiding democracy <an he limit, and, further, that on that character more than on the .-.word depends

can we do, how can we play our part, to prepare ourselves ior the testmg -me of the next century Surely, by more intensive education. The idea of particular people pursuing learning has been familiar for scores of centuries, but the idea of preparing the minds of whole classes or communities for cooperation and common action by a training in common ideas is comparatively new. That is the< gigantic task to which wo are committed.”