PAST AND PRESENT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 11 January 1916, Page 8

PAST AND PRESENT.

INTERESTING PARALLELS

■''.' "Aerial," the writer of :"On the' Watch Tower" in the Dunedin Evening ' *Star, says: • j Last week I referred to the strangelikeness between the Athenians and ourselves and between the ' Lacedaemonians and the Prussians. Listen to a j few sentences from,the great Pericles', in! which he contrasts -Athenil;.wi% Sparta:! "Our fathers s ; acquired j^e^gy.eM', om- j .pire^wnichj/we possess, fandf'by 'pailiMt -;.-^ertii^:-'b^(]3eath^l it{tt||ps; .YXX>. ' In government we' are ;rtbt ■copy.ists, but ourselves the pattern > governing not for' the benefit of the few but ofthe many. . . We believe in numerous recreations for our spirits in games and: sacrifices. . . We throw our city ■ open to all, and- do not exclude even j enemies from seeing things that may i be to their advantage, for. we trust.less to preparations and stratagems than to bur valor. . . The Spartans hope to secure the manly character by laborious ; training from their very youth, whilewe. though living at our ease, advance no less boldly to meet dangers.' . /'-..! Thev always 'march in full force, takingtheir allies with them; but no enemy ever yet encountered our whole force, because we keep up the navy and send troops on so many, different services, j . . . We are the only people who' think a man. who is engaged in business ; can at the same time form a-sufficient. judgment of public matters. . '.;- ;-" .1 We are the only, people who fearlessly' benefit anyone, not from calculation of j expediency, but from confidence in liberal measures. . . .We alone,! when brought to the test, prove superior , to our fame. . . . We need no' Homer to praise us while the truth of facts remains, for we have compelledevery sea and every land to opes to'1 u-s. . . ..It was for such a country, then, that these men nobly resolving not to have it. taken from them, fell fighting. . . ...'' Riches did not make them effeminate nor poverty discontented. . . .• If they had'failed in anything, they did hot'therefore think it right to deprive their country of ;their valor. .'. . . They had received i that renown that', never grows old and! the most distinguished tomb—for of illustrious men the whole earth is the sepulchre." ' Can anyone read even these fragments and scraps without feeling -that an ancient Briton is^speaking? I can fill a page of the Star with exemples equally j striking. The work of Thucydides is thickly sprinkled with references to the "navy," the "Empire," and to the superior "wealth" of Athens. It seems ■ that similar condition® produce similar j results in all ages. If Athens was fin-' ally.-.,worsted it was because of her'1 egregious folly in taking on another [ war equal to that with the Pelopon- ■; nesians at the same time. The sea empire was invincible until the gods: made its rulers, the Athenian mob, j mad: so that from the disaster of the '. ancient power that so. much resembled us 4CO_ years B.C. we need not draw '. depressing inferences. Let me mention j a few -apt sayings of the Greek of the ; times referred to. One speaker saidri •'Manv measures, though "badly plan-! ned, have suceeded through the enemy j beinji s till worse advised." "I am more ' afraid, of -our own mistakes than the enemy's plans."' said another. "I do,not believe that the democracy is fit to ' govern an empire," says the' author j himself. Certainly the democracy was' verv rotten and shameless in those j days. Party spirit triumphed over thej State, and even over ties of blood. "As km<r as human nature- is the same it will be so," says our author again. J Oaths and treaties were mere: scraps of' paper in those days. Every demoeogue, was a- self meeker. I cannot recall one' instance in which Thucydides. who was, no, cynic, but a most impartial observer,' attributes any other than a self-regard-.; ing motive to any-one who oroposes a line I of action or who opposes the p'roposnL-of j another. Therp- was no cant about him, J thouirh from what he reports cant was '. abundant enough in-his day- j: