FUTURE OF EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19458, 14 October 1926, Page 11

FUTURE OF EMPIRE.

DEAN INGE'S GLOOMY VIEW. SIR A. MONO PROTESTS. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 7.35 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 12. Sir Alfred Mond, M P. for Carmarthen, arrived at Southampton to-day from America, where he interviewed leading financiers. Speaking to an interviewer, Sir Alfred denounced as extraordinarily foolish pronouncements the statements of Dean Inge in his recently published book. He said the American newspapers were full of pictures and headlines giving prominence to "the doom of the British Empire." It was intolerable that businessmen who were engaged in difficult negotiations should have to meet this sort of defeatist atmosphere, in which prominence was given to the decadence of Europe and to America's overwhelming superiority. In a book recently published by Dean Inge entitled "England," the author says: "It may well be that tho historian of the future will record the end of the 19th century, or the death of the late Queen Victoria as the culminating point reached by England as a world Power. Since then the ' Colossus has tottered. We are governed by Scots, Welsh, Irish and Jews. Our whole position has changed radically for tho worse. The day of the amateur with haphazard methods is over. This is not a good thing for England." Dean Inge says he thinks tho loyalty of the Dominions, though it was shown splendidly during the war, is now less whole-hearted than could be wished. Tho future of Canada is problematical, he says. The danger of the Americanisation of that Dominion is over-present. Tho future of India is lying on the knees of the gods. A Socialist Government would be the signal for dangerous disturbances in India and the uncertainty about tho future is doing incalculable harm to tho British flag. Ihe whole machinery of the Empire is in a state of chaos. It holds together because there is an abundance of goodwill, not because tho gossamer threads which join its parts could bear tho slightest strain.