GEN. SEELY ON ENGLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 January 1933, Page 8

GEN. SEELY ON ENGLAND

_ A TRACT FOR THE TIMES. “For Ever England,” by Major-Gen-eral J. E. B. Seely, recently published, the following being a review by Leonard Russell in the “Daily Telegraph.” “The English are a wonderful people, they have the three great Roman virtues with some of the Christian virtues added —the three great Roman virtues, self-control self-discipline, and self-respect.” The speaker was Mussolini and his auditor Gen. Seely, who wrote this admirable book about English life and character as an outcome of the conversation held in Rome a year and a-half ago.

During 40 years Gen. Seely has travelled the earth’s surface in peace and war, and on returning to his native land,it has been impressed upon him time and time again “how wonderful this England is, and what decent, people live in it.” So in a volume which is a blend of social history and personal reminiscence, he has recorded his belief in England’s destiny. It is a tract for the times, indeed; an antidote to depression and defeatism which deserves to be widely read. Character has carried us triumphantly through world stress and internal friction, leaving us “.a vital force, more powerful than Ancient Greece or Rome.”

FOGH’S PROPHECY. Not long before his death Foch commented on the “strangeness” of the English to Gen. Seely. “When you are faced with a great danger, you stand together and see things clearly. You choose the great, and reject the small. Then all at once, when the danger is over, however narrow your escape, you begin to quarrel amongst yourselves, as all nations do, but you seem to forget all the great things, and spend your time in . . . halfpenny politics.’ ”

He went on to prophecy, with considerable prescience, that England would lie on the brink of the waterfall in 1931 —“because of the ‘fractious policy’ of your politicians.” Gen. Seely himself is a staunch supporter of Government by coalition.

“The mistake in our method of Government lias been what is termed the Party System. We have nearly broken away from it for Ihe moment: i pray we may never return to it.” Close observation of rural life in many parts of England has led the author to the conclusion that all classes in the countryside have far more real happiness to-day than they have had at any time during the last 50 years.