WAR AND THE AFTERMATH.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXXII, Issue 2803, 20 November 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

WAR AND THE AFTERMATH.

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF. THE MEMORABLE 1780’S AND NOW.

History does repeat itself, and the student of the day may find much in common between the world in the 178(J’s and now. Those were the days when England suffered the loss of her American colonies, when revolution was raging in France, and when England after a very brief lull embarked upon what remained until the memorable days of 1914 as the years of bitterest and most devastating war in Europe. Between the two periods—then and now, with war and its aftermath—there is much in common. The famous Earl of Chatham —the senior Put —had wielded an almost unprecedented power over the policies and politics of Europe. But diplomacy in the American colonies had failed. When his son, the younger I’itt, had wrested the Premiership from such stalwart and tested politicians as Burke, Fox, and North, the blow of the loss of the colonies was a real predicament. In commerce, in finance, and in politics the effect was chaotic. Pitt the younger was scarce entered into his twenties. “ The boy Premier ” he was called, and it was this mere lad who had pitted himself not merely against the rival political factions of his own land, but against the intrigues and the plotting of the Governments of all Europe. In those days, too, Governments consisted of and were controlled by the aristocracy. Even in enlightened England, a nation of 8,000,000 inhabitants, there were only 160,000 electors 1 Early in the 1780's England had the Fox-North Coalition. This Coalition, combining factions hitherto displaying the keenest hostility to each other, gave to the younger Pitt the reason for his vigorous condemnation of it in the House of Commons. “ It is an unnatural Coalition, and if the baneful alliance is not already formed; if this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnised, I know a just and lawful impediment, and in the name of public safety I here forbid the banns ! ” The Coalition did come, even though King George 111. had sent for Pitt the younger—then only in his early twenties—to form a Government. But the young man had the temerity to refuse even an order from his King ! It was on 25th March, 1783, that he refused to form a Government; but on 19th December of that same year he became Prime Minister. But the difference in the interval was that he could claim a Government not dependent on the other rival factions. Gradually, by artful motions in the Commons, he had driven the factions to the Coalition irtto different camps, and in so doing he drove a wedge into the very vitals of the Coalition. He steadily increased the majority which was to enable him to form and to hold a majority for tho Government he was destined to form.

In the year 1783 Britain was still astounded by the loss of the American colonics. But there was a region, to this day three times as populous ns the United States of America, over which a dismembered sovereignty was rapidly extending its grip. It was to India that the new Prime Minister* turned. What an era of strategy it proved. Defeated on motion after motion before the Commons, Pitt could hold office only because the Coalition could not retain itself in power even though it had the numerical strength to do so. Not until a year later, in 1784, did the general election give to England a stable Government. That England did not love Coalitions was proved by the fact that 160 Coalition supporters lost their seats. " The boy statesman ” had a two-to-onc majority in the new House.

But the financial barometer was unsteady to an alarming degree. In France the burden of finance had ended in revolution. In the present days of modern finance—when millions pass almost unnoticed—the arithmetic of the 1780’s seems scarcely disconcerting. Still, at that time figures gave cause for alarm; and it is curious to note that the debts of England and of Franco were approximately the same. In sterling the figure was £215,000,000, and in Great Britain tho entire revenue was no more than £25,000,000. It was statesmanship that saved Britain from the revolution which devastated Franco of tho period. In those “ good old days ” smuggling seems to have been a popular pastime. " Tho boy statesman ” of Britain applied himself to the resultant loss of revenues, and his methods were as ingenious as they proved to be wise. Tea, spirits, and tobacco were singled out for attention, and on these commodities of commerce he actually reduced the duty—reduced it to a figure at which it was difficult for smuggling to be carried on at a profit. Within a year it is recorded that the smaller the duty the larger was its yield ! Not less courageous was Pitt’s resolve to impose new taxes. " I confide,” said he, " in the good sense and patriotism of the people of England,” and it was this confidence, not misplaced, that saved the throne and the social system of the country. Reviewing tho taxation, one may smile today. On ribands and ganges worn by the ladies this young yet confirmed bachelor laid his unchivalrous hand. On printed linens and calicoes the hand of the tax-gatherer also fell. Horses used for pleasure were considered a luxury, and were heavily taxed. The memorable feature of his effort to balance his budget was his -window tax. It was indicative of a civilisation on which the teaching of hygiene had yet to operate. A house of seven windows had to pay seven shillings, but if more than ten windows the tax was 2s Gd per window. Little wonder that curious and unsightly features were noticed—windows were blocked up or painted jet black ! So budgets followed one another until, aftei’ four years, Pitt could at last claim that by retrenchment, combined with increased taxation, his annual revenue had averaged £400,000 in excess of the expenditure. It is of particular interest in these days, and in this country that, in order to meet the claims of the American loyalists, requiring a Parliamentary appropriation of £1,228,000, the money was

raised in England by lotteries, The het result of the arrangements and devices was, however, that amid au insolvent Europe one country had established her solvency, and that country was Great Britain. But the storm clouds of Europe were always threatening. It fell on England to hold always the balance of power. Pitt had saved the national finances, and he had adjusted the solution to the problem in India. This at a time when all Europe was seething with discontent. Tne life of the Prime Minister was one continual exercise of diplomacy. Always in France, sometimes in Spain, or in Prussia. British'diplomacy was faced with two great prbolems. There was the political decadence of Western Europe, which culminated in the French revolution; and there was the expansion of Russia. It was-the latter which provoked troubles and which momentarily checked the peaceloving ideals of England. Catherine of Russia had disturbed herself at the thought of a “ mere boy statesman ” holding such a balance of power. She ridiculed the spectacle of his influencing all -the commercial treaties of Europe. She, in - her own words, “ would treat Mr Pitt as a man who took himself a little too seriously,” and she challenged him to send the British fleet, if he could, overland to Moscow 1 Soon Eastern Europe was embroiled again — Catherine had her armies marching toward the Black Sea. Britain, striving for peace, could not ignore the grim spectacle of war, that was always at hand at the dictate of a woman who at the moment was swaying the destinies of Russia. And all the time Britain was at an extremity in keeping her national finances in a state of security against internal revolution. It was in this, old diplomacy, as wa may call it, that a map was divided into countries by frontier boundaries. Travel was slow and tedious, whilst inter-communication was rare and uncertain. Foreign policies were defined with diligent care and precision, and at all times it was the aristocracy that really mattered. Revolution was not objected to so much for the damage it inflicted, but it was condemned as a breach of etiquette. Therefore there was a European concern in the revolution which was devastating France. It was not so much that the guillotine mattered; it was the breach of etiquette. By their revolution the French, so it was thought, like the Russians in our day, were stopping the game by upsetting the board. All the elements of the game which had been set out decently on the tables of aristocracy were scattered higgledy piggledy on the ground floor of democracy. The fate of the French throne affected every throne, and_ every aristocracy wished to make common cause with the French aristocracy. So, in the Parliament of England was there further cause for discord. Pitt was in a perplexity. He could not defend the French revolution as the acceptance of that sacrilege would challenge the monarchy under which he held office. Yet he wanted to maintain peace; the country was too impoverished for war, and he pleaded the theory of a prosperous England remote from a distressed France. But he pleased neither political group by his pleading. Slowly but surely the balance of opinion supporting Pitt’s neutrality was upset. With politics and policies in England so unbalanced, war seemed imminent; but it was by the act of France herself that Great Britain was again plunged into a war that lasted till, twenty years later, Napoleon fled from the field of Waterloo. Nevertheless, it was the old men in their arm-chairs who, in England, wanted the war, whilst the young men did not want it, yet had to do the fighting. In politics Pitt was chained to the chariot wheel of a pagan god. " My head would be off in six months were I to resign,” he said grimly, when privately discussing the political situation in his country at that critical time. It was in the 1790’s that another dilemma arose. Pitt was faced with a similar situation to that which confronted Asquith in 1914, and it concerned Ireland. In both cases Great Britain was fighting a desperate war, and in both cases an act of constitutional justice to Ireland was the issue. In both cases, too, delay and consequent exasperation threw Ireland into a flame of rebellion. As the leaders of rebellion turned to Germany in 1914, in Pitt’s time they turned to France. What the Germans sent in 1914 was a submarine; what the French sent in 1805 was a legion of galley slaves and feons — 1800 of them—who were to be let loose on the English countryside to burn, to pillage, and to loot. Enough that the blows mis-carried. They did not land because they fancied a force of regular troops was there to resist them. What they really did see, however, was merely a number of Welsh women clad in the red cloaks and wearing the black hats that were characteristic of the period. Almost by a miracle was this invasion averted; but a still greater disaster awaited. Pitt, on a critical division which would have secured constitutional justice for Ireland and so have restored internal peace, was defeated in the Commons, earning the displeasure of the King, and for a short year British politics were placed under other leadership. Internal discord, even to the point of rebellion, following years of war, had brought England to the verge of collapse. In such a period, as in this, the fabric of the nation was most surely tested. The burden of taxation, the collapse of money values, the dislocation of all established commerce demanded the guidance of a statesman and the fortitude of the people. With rebellion and war on every hand, with agencies for disruption at home, Britain faced one of the gravest periods in her career. As Pitt recalled so often, “the good sense and patriotism of Britain have prevailed, and must for ever endure.” How much may we learn from that period. Troubles in these modern times there, may be and are; but it is good sense and British patriotism that will, as of yore, prevail.