NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20725, 19 November 1930, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ENGLAND ADRIFT. " The prevailing state of mind in England today is one of defeatism or of scepticism, of disbelief in herself. England has ceased to have ideals or, if she has them, to believe in the possibility of their fulfilment. Alono among the Great Powers she has ceased to have a mission," says Mr. John Hallett, in the Fortnightly Review. France has made a religion of security; she worships herself and her own place in the sun, and will fight passionately to maintain it. Italy tired rapidly of post-war apathy, and set up for herself the graven imago of Fascism; Signor Mussolini has given to his countrymen a creed and an inspiration. America believes in the virtues of material progress and universal education, and never questions her mission to point out tho way of salvation (though at a safe distance, for fear of corrupting entanglements) to the more backward races of Europe. The Russian preaches world-revolution and the establishment of the reign of pure communism at home and abroad. Even tho German, whose state of mind comes perhaps nearest to our own, has his mission of life. He clings to the conviction that, sooner or later, by meekness or by truculence, by cunning or by force, ho will throw off the fetters imposed upon him at Versailles and once more take bis place among tho great nations; and by this faith he lives. "Wo have been in the doldrums before, and wo shall emerge again," Mr. Hallett adds. " Some day wo shall ariso from the consideration of immediate profit and scepticism of any remoter purpose which dominato our current politics and literature. We shall begin onco more to belicvo in ourselves, to find creeds worth defending, causes worth working for, missions worth fulfilling. The fashion of indifference and tho cult of futility will pass away; and wo shall cease to bo defeatists. But in the meanwhile we need a faith—or at any rale a passable fetish."

NOT ON 1 THE DOWN GRADE. That Mr. Hallett's prophecy may be near fulfilment is suggested by the concluding passage of an article in the Review of Reviews by Mr. Wickham Steed. " There is one fundamental truth which all observers would do well to ponder," he says. " This truth is that Great Britain is not on the down grade. Her people are only just beginning to realise how great their strength and their resources arc, strength and resources being quite as much moral as material. Among them is their possession of a social sense unparalleled elsewhere in tho world, a plasticity which their fidelity to tradition sometimes obscures, and a raro power of putting things right when once it has been made plain to them how and why things are wrong. Great Britain is the head and the heart of tho greatest political organisation the world has ever seen, and it is an organisation of which tho main interest is not only peace among its members, but peaco among tho other nations of tho world. In pursuit of this interest it is working slowly, dourly, groping its way, settling its difficulties haphazard as they arise, yet using haphazard settlements as stepping stones to higher achievements, and ready to 'scrap' many antique notions and prejudices if they stand in tho way of moral and material advance. If I were a foreigner I should keep a very sharp eye on England during tho next ten or fifteen years. She is certain to do things that will astonish foreign countries when they find out that she has done them.. She may recast her social system, she may throw overboard ideas and habits that seemed immutable. Slio may evolve some new means of reconciling political and economic efficiency with individual freedom. One thing she will not do: She will not go down or perish from faint heartcdiiess. Just now she is looking round and taking stock of her position. Long before stocktaking is finished, she will have be gun to liquidate useless encumbrances and to start new lines of work. She has touched bottom and is on the up grade—whereas somo other nations have still their troubles beforo them. It will be a good thing to bo associated with England in the years to conio and to enjoy her confidence."