ANTI PATRIOTIC BIAS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 12025, 11 December 1901, Page 2

ANTI PATRIOTIC BIAS.

Whkn the war is over, and w« can sit down calmly to consider the effect which it has had on national character and political life, one of the things which will first attract the carious analyst will be the remarkable exhibition of what Mr Herbert Spenoer calls the bias of AntiPatriotism. The British people all the world over is suffering a sharp attack of self-distrust. We can hardly pick op a paper without finding our military organisation, our commercial methods, and our political machinery weighed in the balance of some self-oonstitnted critic and found wanting. It is a curious, and certainly not a pleasant occupation, and it is not easy to give any quite satisfactory explanation of its present popularity. Perhaps it results from disgust at the jaunty self-satisfaction which is the chief characteristic of the patriotic bias in car own and in other races. Or it may bo due partly to an affectation assumed to win a reputation for wide knowledge and extensive culture. Or it may be that we have been taking things rather too easily and have not watched with sufficient care the progress which our neighbors and rivals have been making in the struggle of nations. The most remarkable manifestation is certainly to be found in the anti-patriotic utterances of men like Sir Campbell-Bannerman and of the so-called pro-Boer Press. In their case it is probably a feature of the political tendency of the English people, and springs from a conviction that the nation is going to the dogs because it will not follow their advioa.

It is most strange that in the course of a trying struggle men should be found ready and willing to throw further obstacles in the way of their country’s success, and to add to her dangers and difficulties. Opinion is free, and we can understand that some may think our policy in Sooth Africa mistaken, but it is incomprehensible that anyone should carry the feeling so far as to wish ill-success to our arms. And yet this is not the first occasion on which British opinion baa been hopelessly divided. No doubt during the trying time of the Armada many Englishmen prayed for the victory of the Spaniard. In the struggle with the North American colonies many Britishers sympathishod with and actually assisted the provincial forces. And, what is still more surprising, daring the great duel with Napoleon there were not wanting Englishmen who openly expressed the hope that the French arms might be successful. This is remarkable when one considers

the hatred which Napoleon bore to England and the determination whiob be showed to humble her in the dust. It is to be explained, however, by the fact that England was at the time on the verge of a political crisis. The reformers were

fighting an uphill battle for political freedom and they quite mistakenly regarded Napoleon as the protagonist of liberty. Nothing can more conclusively prove how grossly contemporary opinion

may err than the views of many of the leading Englishmen of the reform party Qeorge Tioknor, the American man of letters,who visited England shortly before I Napoleon's escape from Elba, gives much carious evidence on this point. Sir James Mackintosh, for example, wrote an able and elaborate artiole for the Edinburgh Review to prove that the war with France ought to have been avoided, and that the consequences to England could only be nnfortunate. The number, it is said, was actually printed end ready for distribution, bat it was thought better to postpone its appearance in the anticipation of a military reverse, which woold give it the appearance of a prophecy. Instead of the reverse, however, the victory of Waterloo came like a thunderclap, and { the article was suppressed, one on phren-

ology being printed in its stead. Ticknor wee amazed at the manner in which the Whige regarded the war and at their attitude to England's enemies. On hie way to London ho visited Dr. Parr, who was a sturdy specimen of the Little Englander and poaco-at-any-pria party, which is sometimes supposed to lx the particular product of our own times Dr. Parr assured his American visitor that he should not think he bad done hit duty if he wont to bed any night without praying for the success of Buonaparte Ticknor was with Lord Byron when the news of Waterloo came. The poet’s first words were, "I am d d sorry to hear itj I didn't know but I might live to see Lord Caetlereagh’s head on a pole, but I suppose I shan’t now,’* Hazlitt, the protonndest critic of his time, was still more enthusiastic. A friend describes him as staggering under the blow of Waterloo,

and ha bitterly resented the captivity of the Emperor at St. Helena as it he had sustained a personal wrong. History repeats itself, and it Englishmen could be found to support Napoleon against their own country we need not wonder at the curiosities of pro-Boer agitation.