PROPHETS OF GLOOM

Grey River Argus, 29 July 1940, Page 4

PROPHETS OF GLOOM

GIVEN A JOLT A Cheerful War Note HOBART, July 10. In an address relating to the fortunes. of the war, a cheerful note was struck in a public address by Archbishop Simonds, Catholic Primate of Tasmania, speaking at Pontville. “T. do not share in the pessimism of many of those whom I meet daily,” -said Archbishop Simonds. “Prophets

of gloom in our midst would b e wel' advised to glance back at some of the erise s that have confronted the British Empire to see how completely the pessimistic forecasts of its ruin have been falsified. Here are some examples, “Tn 1783, the Younger Pitt, who was just about to begin a’career of brilliance and success that has been equalled before or since his time, surveyed the national situation and said: ‘There is scarcely anything around us but ruin and despair.’ The disastrous war with th« United States and her allies had ended in. the loss of the American colonies and the cession of valuable properties to France and Spain. Pitt thought that th e beginning of the end for the Empire had arrived. Actually, the zenith of England’s military glory at Waterloo, and the

height of her influence on the. world’s history, were to be reached a few years after Pitt’s’ pessimistic outburst. NAPOLEONIC WAR. “In the early nineteenth century, the second Napoleonic war was being launched on Europe. Napoleon, just as Hitler was doing to-day, wa s concentrating all his energies upon a final’ and devastating blow against England, whom he flattered by reserving for her his bitterest hatred. The outlook was ominous, and it. is recorded that Archbishop Wilberforce said: ‘I dare not marry; the future is so dark and unsettled.’ But the future, ‘so dark and unsettled,’ was soon to be brightened by the crushing victory at Waterloo, which §ent th e Tyrant of Europe to the

lonely isolation of St. Helena. “In 1837, just as the young Queen Victoria 'was beginning the longest and most prosperous reign in English history, the elderly Queen Adelaide is reported to have said: ‘1 have only one desire; to play the part of Marie Antoinette with bravery in th e coming revolution.’ It wa' s the era of social unrest that centred round the Chartist riots. But Chartism died a peaceful death, and the sound common sense of successive statesmen accomplished social reform by evolutionary methods. The dreaded revolution did not eventuate, and the good Queen was enabled to die peacefully in her bed without having to play her heroic role as Marie An toinette. STORM OF REVOLUTION. “The year 1848 marked an era in

European history because of the storm of revolutions that spread fik ? an epidemic through most of the capital's of Europe after the fall of Louis Philippe. Ini that year Lord Shaftesbury, the great social reformer, said: ‘Nothing can save the British Empire from shipwreck.’ But England was the nation that most successfully maintained an even keel in that revolutionary storm, and thus falsified the gloomy pessimism of Shaftesbury. “In the following year, 1849, Disraeli, the future Prime Minister, exclaimed: ‘ln industry, commerce, and agriculture there is no hope.’ Yet, before many years had passed,. England had begun to assert her position as the greatest manufacturing nation in the world, and the famous International Exhibition of London,; held only, two years after Disraeli's i

prophecy of gloom, marked the climax of a period of national progress. “In 1851, the great Duke of Wellington said in sorrow not long before his death: ‘I thank God I will be spared from seeing the consummation of ruin that is gathering around? But before th e century was near its end, the Empire that the great Duke had helped to consolidate by his victorious arms, but which he thought was sinking into inevitable ruin, was strong enough to hold together by the common ideals and loyalty of the varied elements of which it was composed. The Empire ha s now reached the virile ( maturity of its free component parts. ‘ and is lighting as one moral unit its greatest struggle for the ideals that, have inspired its unity. Just as| Pitt, Shaftesbury, Disraeli ans We}-

lington were all misguided in their, pessimistic survey of the times, so are the pessimists of 1940. The free spirit of a strong and united people is not broken by temporary adversities, however grave.”