DEAN INGE SPEAKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21949, 5 November 1934, Page 6

DEAN INGE SPEAKS

PATRIOTISM: IMPERIALISM ALLIANCE, NOT FEDERATION THE END OF JINGOISM

BY THE VERY REV. WILLIAM R. INGE, LATE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S

(Copyright.) No. V.

I have left to the last one of the most important changes that I have witnessed. It gathers round t'-o words Patriotism, Imperialism, War and PeacG. No one who witnessed the 3897 Jubilee can ever forget it. It was a ma and arrogant spectacle Kings and princes i'i gorgeous uniforms; contingents of troops from every corner of the earth, all assembled to do homage to the greatest Empire of all times, the dominion on which the sun never sets —and seldom rises, say the I'rench, who think we live in perpetual fog. [ watched .the procession, and the crowds of spectators, and I rio^ deceived. This, I said to myseif, is the last flare-up of an expiring ideal. We are not a military or a conquering race. Our Imperialism, so raucously vocal in the 'eighties and nineties, is just the romance of the drab dwellers in Suburbia, a generous vision of national glorv, but with no root in the hard soil' of fact. The century of British ascendancy, which began with Waterloo, is approaching its end. Our home base is too .small, and the will to power is wanting in the masses. Soon after this came the Boer War, and general disillusionment. We mado ourselves very unpopular in an inglorious campaign in which two hundred thousand British had great difficulty in crushing the resistance of "n few'thousani men in their shirts." Wo painted another piece of the map led, but it was not a pleasant job.

The Great War was sprung upon us. Nobody wanted to fight, and wo knew from the first that \\Q had everything to lose and nothing to gain. The "nation behaved splendidly; but when it was over there was no "mafeking."' no jubilation; and the men who fought never talk about their experiences. This alone marks a great change in oui' ways of thinking. Future of the Empire

There is a growing feeling that we do not want unwilling subjects. This really means the end of the British Empire. There may still be a Commonwealth of Nations, but it is an alliance, not a federation, and if any province wishes to secede, it looks as if we were prepared to let it go. But those "who are willing to throw away the Empire with both hands should remember the American Civil War. The South wished to be independent, and the North hammered them ruthlessly for four* vears until they were beaten flat. There is no secession movement in the United States to-day; Lincoln saved his country by a policv of unyielding coercion. Our difficulty "is that there are many Englishmen who are friends of every country except their pwn. We differ, it seems, from other misguided rascals in never being in the right even bv accident. But the Great War finished jingoism once for all. A war between great European nations is not only a monstrous crinie, but a monstrous folly. It is in a sense a civil war, sine* we are all sharers in the same culture The nations do not hate each other unless they are goaded into animosity by lying propaganda. Victory in such a war is almost as disastrous as defeat. To gain these nugatory ends the nations are asked to give the lives of their best children, not by the thousand, but by the million. 1 hey are asked to acquiesce in horrors which have never been committed on a large scale since the beginning of civilisation, and which threaten to be far worse if war breaks out again. In consequence we are nearly all agreed now that war is an utterly accursed thing, which need not exist and should be extirpated. This was not the view taken 50 years ago, when drum and trumpet histories proclaimed the invincible might and valour of the nation to which the historian belonged. But, unfortunately, in spite of the proverb, it takes •>nlv one to make a quarrel, and if we wish to disarm, can we be sure of our neighbours?

Britain and Trance There are nations, like Hungary, burning under a sense of injustice, who are ready to fight to-morrow. And I fear that three of the Great Powers — America, France and Italy, who came out of the Great War stronger than they went in, are not entirely converted to pacificism. The Americans, at any rate, are piling up armaments, though nobody threatens them or could threaten them. Germany, too, seems at this moment to be menacing. For ourselves, another European war would be utterly ruinous, and to embark in it would be an act of criminal folly amounting to insanity. The question is whether oijr Government has not entered into compacts which might conceivably drag us into the abyss. I am very much afraid that the French think that we should help them again if they went to war with Germany. I think so from what I have read in French books and periodicals. My own conviction is that, pact or 110 pact, the people of this country would refuse ±o light for the French, and 1 see no reason why we should. The Germans, 1 believe, understand the state of public opinion in England; but the French do not. This is an extraordinarily dangerous state of affairs; nothing could be more likely to cause a/catastrophe: and we might find ourselves in a position from which we could hardly extricate ourselves without di.shcJioi./r. I think, therefore; that we ought, while there is yet time, to withdraw from any agreement which, in any conceivable circumstances, may compel us to join in a ruinous conflict which does not concern us at all.

Purifying Patriotism There are sonic, like Mr. Wells, who oppose the League of Nations, just because it is-'a Leughe of Nations. They wish to abolish frontiers, to scrap patriotism, and to proclaim "the Parliament of man, the federation of the world." I cannot go all, the way with them. The sentiment of nationality is very strong, and does not seem to be growing weaker. In the Great War it swept away all opposition. Those who wish to abolish patriotism too often wish to substitute for it something far worse —the vije spirit of class-war. This, of course, is what the Communists want; we can understand their hatred for Fascism and Nazism, which are based on intense loyalty to the nation as a unit. 1 am not an admirer of i-Jitlcr; but both in Germany and Italy there is a noble aspiration to make an end of all class animosities and to \york together for the common good. "My country first, mv class second, myself last." This is not a bad motto for a great nation. Patriotism is far too inspiring an emotion to be thrown siway; it needs to be purified, not destroyed.

We all belong to a treat many associations, each o£ which has a strong but limited claim upon ns. There is the family, our partners in business, our Church, our country, and the comity of all civilised humanity. We must not act any 'one of these swallow up the rest As St. Peter says: "Honour all men. Lov» th<* brotherhood. Fear God.-.Honour the King." The fear of God may perhaps be held to include all lesser loyalties; the others limit without destroying each other.

(Concluded.)