THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1901. PERILS THAT ASSAIL THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1510, 7 February 1901, Page 34

THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1901. PERILS THAT ASSAIL THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

Lord"' Charles Beresford is known, by name at least, to every Briton who takes an interest in the contemporary history of the Empire. In his profession as a sailor he has won well-deserved renown by his personal gallantry, tact and ability as a commander; and as an ardent advocate cf far-reaching naval reforms his writings and speeches have from time to time attracted widespread and keen attention. There is something typically English about Lord Charles, and there is no subject of his Majesty the King who possesses in a greater degree) the admirable British characteristic of outspokenness. In; an article which Lord Charles has contributed to the December .number of the “North American Review, 5 ’ he speaks out with considerable bluntness, not to say audacity, as to the perils which, in his opinion, the Anglo-Saxon race is destined to confront in the near future. Lord Charles is no pessimist, and before dealing with the subject of dangers ahead he indulges in a justifiable outburst of pride over the marvellous growth of the race, its past virility, spirit of enterprise and peculiar aptitude for self-government and the benefits to the race, and to the civilised world, which have been brought about by the exercise of Anglo-Saxon characteristics generally. So far, the great achievements of the race have been, he contends, mainly the result of the military and the) commercial spirit having been kept- side by side. In the history of byegone! Empires, decay was, he argues, the outcome of undue devotion either to the spirit of conquest alone or to that of commerce unsupported by sufficient attention to powers of defence, or, where necessary, of aggression.

Considering the present state of affairs in Great Britain and in America,

and anxiously peering into the future, Lord Charles holds that all is far from being well with the race of which lie- is so proud- He certainly does not mince his words when he frankly denounces the Plutocracy, and the social and political power it exercises, as the chief cause of many of these evils which are, he asserts, slowly but surely working widespread national harm. ‘‘British society,’’ he says, in one peculiarly telling sentence, ‘‘lias been eaten into by the canker of money; from the top downwards the tree is rotten. The most immoral pose before the public as the most philanthropic, and as doers of all good works; Beauty is the slave of gold, and Intellect, led by Beauty, unknowingly dances to the strings which are pulled by Plutocracy.” Further on the indignant essayist openly assails the ‘'Golden God” as the worst danger which menaces the Anglo-Saxon race. We have' not, says Lord Charles, to. fear “the angry waters of the Latin races or of envious rivals”; the ‘'sea which threatens to overwhelm the race” is the “cankering worm in its own heart —the sloth, the indolence, the luxurious immorality, the loss of manliness, chivalry, moral courage! and fearlessness which that worm breeds.” Here, indeed, is a stern indictment, and there is, it must be confessed, much in contemporary history to give it warranty. Never has England been nominally and apparently richer and more powerful than she was during the last decadet of her late Majesty’s reign, but of late there has been more than one ugly proof of that “cankerworm*' of which Lord Charles speaks with such indignant eloquence. The gross and glaring incompetency at the War Office and at the Admiralty, the “society” influence which, as a Conservative meimber said in the House of Commons only a few weeks ago, had surrounded Lord Roberts with a host of young, untried officers whose only qualification seemed to be birth and wealth; the hopeless bungling which, it is now notorious, marked the earlier stages of the war, the wanton extravagance and luxury of life in which so many indulge whilst side by side is a poverty, a misery, tco terrible for description; all these, to go no further, justify to no small extent the denunciations of the writer in the “North American Review.”

In the commercial world also the elements of decay—of that dry rot which precedes actual disaster—are only too easily perceptible. It was but the other day that Lord Rosebery, in a patriotic speech at Edinburgh, uttered a grave note of warning as to what would happen unless prompt attention is given to increased technical education, the keener study and utilisation of new inventions and discoveries, and a greater all-round and more assiduous attention on the part of British manufacturers to the requirements of their customers. Like Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Rosebery attacked the increasing luxury and indolence of the nation, hinting that not only in autocratic circles were these' evifs apparent, but that they were visible ’ also amongst those who had hitherto bden regarded as the backbone of England’s greatness, her merchants, manufacturers and traders.

As to remedies for these evils, Lord Rosebery was not so plain spoken as the gallant naval officer to whose article we have drawn attention. Lord Beresfoid looks to the masses, to the democracy, to stem that degeneration which ha fears is sapping the vitality of the Anglo-Saxon race. “The masses may err,” he admits, “they may need powerful and educated leaders, but the voice of the people in the end is right, because in the mass they are neither selfseeking nor self-serving; for it is impossible for a mass to be swayed by purely selfish interests.” The nation, he argues, must be purged of all that belittles its fair name, and to effect this, and not to encourage, eitheir by selfinterest or cowardly apathy, the selfish ambitions and the greed of the Plutocracy should be, if we read Lord Charles’s meaning aright, the aim l! all truly patriotic British statesmen. The article, coming as it does from a British peer, a naval officer cf the highest rank and of the highest personal reputation for patriotism and loyalty, should exercise an extremely wholesome influence upon the British mind. More especially should Lord Charles’s grave and earnest note! of warning be heeded at a time like the present, when the nation has just entered upon a new century and when the accession of a new monarch should cause every loyal British subject to pray that healthy

national progression, both moral and material, may be the keynote of t-.a future.