LETTER FROM LONDON.

NZ Truth, Issue 94, 6 April 1907, Page 3

LETTER FROM LONDON.

Is John Bull Degenerating?

The Pessimistic Predictions oi a

Peregrinating Penman.

LIVERPOOL, Feb, Ist, 1907,

I am sailing to-day for the land of big earthquakes and bigger liars, and my heart is filled with pity for poor old John Bull. I picture bim m the years to come as a mean, whining figure pointing out the sights of London to swaggering Japanese, who will throw him copper coins as globetrotters throw them to the beggars at home to-day. To my ears there comes the sound of a brown Gibbon sharpening his pencil to write the story of the decline and fall of the British Empire.; and I am sorry. I watched a detachment of Japs, viewing Nelson's monument the other day, and I am certain they thought Horatio N., a squib. They giggled violently, and prodded one another m the ribs as they gazed upward at the snow-splattered figure on the stone pole, and calculated how long Trafalgar's hero would last m a sea scrap with one of their ready-made Togos. lam positively certain they were amused at the exploits of Lady Hamilton's mash, but three STLK-HATTED BRITONS i who were parsing by, thinking, the grin, was manufactured specially for them, lifted their hats and bowed politely. Bull has got far toojwlite. That is why I think he will make a good guide when the East starts to swarm, and a future Cook, incubated at Tokio, will organise specially - conducted tours to take moneyed mandarins to see the ruins and antiquities of London town. This nation reminds me of a once strong man gripped by consumption, who fondly imagines that he is as strong as he was before he started to spit his lungs up. He is, not the Bull of old. He is represented [ to-day by Coin and Coinage, by Pelf and Poverty ; but the middle class — the strong, [ sturdy, independent, earth-conquering middle class— the bowels of the nation, has 'been taken from him, and he is m a stato of collapse. He is built up of Costers, Chauffeurs, ,and Coronets ; and Germany and America supply his needs. The British mechanic is as extinct as the, moa, and the poor devils scratching the soil are Godforgotten wretches who cannot find the five guineas demanded by Booth for a Canadian trip. This land doesn't breed prophets — the climate is-not suitable — but the signs ar6 big enough to convince anyone but the average Englishman. The " Times " commenting on the increase m the Japanese Navy, remarks that every ship added will help England to hold India. Shades oi Olive! Did one ever see the Uke! Our grip on the spoon-fed Empire is to be strengthened by a few brown, admirals, who \ will wink at their cousins on shore as they i notice THE PALSIED PAWS | of old J. 8 .! These are strenuous days, and the nation so afflicted with a "tired feel* ing" that it starts to lean up agaihst a colored horde that but yesterday crawled out of the husk of barbarism had better j coffin itself," and get out of the way. I fancy 'that if Cliye, the man who thought any duplicity excusable when dealing with a cunning Oriental, was alive to-day, he would explode after reading the claptrap of "The Thunderer j". the poor old "Times," which lately prosecuted a bricklayer for j failing to pay -#n instalment on aj_i; t out-of-date encyclopaedia, and struck some vigorous, rough-edged commen^ thrown by a spry Judges » The dailies protest mildly against the" Calif ornians for turning the icy bladebone on the Jap emigrants, and a pompous military paper asserts that a nation which is m alliance with England should be certainly good enough for the Americans on the Pacific Slope. The Californian has imagination, however, and it is somewhat stirred by the fact that ten thousand little brown devils on the spot are giving him a hot race along the avenues of trade,, so he is hardly likely to accept the advice tendered to Australia m the past. The American still carries the punch which Bull has lost, and he is likely to give a good account of himself when the time arrives; but J.B. is beyond redemption— he is hopelessly lost, and THE, ABYSS OF DECAY yawns before himu It is dreadful to contemplate. It will be the Jap who will stand and gaze at the ruins of St. Paul's, and wonder why his ancestors hitched themselves to a nation struggling for a toe-grip on the slide above disaster, and, unable to find a reason, will' put it down to the shortsightedness of his forefathers, who had not formed a proper estimate of the genius and strength of their own nation. The spectacle of those three silk-hatted, stolid Britons doffing thei» skull-covers to the little, stunted dwarf who were giggling at " Glorious Nelson " is always before my mind; and I am sorry for Bull— very sorry.