TYRANNY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4811, 20 February 1936, Page 8

TYRANNY

“Tyranny, for the sake of its own security, soon extends into the sphere of opinion, not only in politics, but also in religion, in culture, and even in philosophy. There springs up a conflict of force against ideas, of matter against mind. So the individual is humiliated, and the soul of the nation degraded. There may be order; there may be an appearance of unity; there may even be national power. But power is one thing, true greatness another. At the end, there is a disease to which dictatorships are very prone—megalomania. It is a mortal disease. We see the symptoms appearing clearly enough. Here in Britain, and in the British Commonwealth, we will have none of this. Our free institutions are founded in

centuries of history, and will stand. Although there are some among us who, without any stable ideas of their own, are consistent only in always following the fashion of the moment, these are very few. Emerson’s saying, complimentary though it is, may nevertheless be true, T find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.’"—'Sir Herbert Samuel.