CHRIST CÆSAR NAPOLEON

NZ Truth, Issue 474, 18 July 1914, Page 1

CHRIST CÆSAR NAPOLEON

Second Series : No. XXVI.

Althbugh the Roman and British Empires ai*e not. akin m their policy and progress, thereto seem to be, some indications that the • later Empire is declining to a like doom, and falling from the same causes, to a similar' fate as those which ultimately overtook the earlier Empire. No Empire can be eternal 1 : every Empire ever ki^own has fallen.; .and great and, mighty as they wei'«,/'"and long as. they ■ lasted — • sonic oil . them for thousands of years — little is now known or can ever be known of them. To trace even the outlines of the ancient cities of Crete, of Greece, those of ! the capitals of the Pharaohs, of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, it is necessary to rake and sift the sands of the deserts which have surrounded and overwhelmed them. 7?. ■ ■ A . X Not. so with Rome: we know what she was, and what she becainc; her works, her very ruins, do testify to her. She grew slowly, built solidly, and lived long; but her career was gloriously even if the end was ignoble. Pagan Rome ruled the world politically • iii war and. peace, by arms and arts; modern Rome has ruled the world religiously, through sun shine and shadow, by the aid of sacerdotalism and superstition — and Rome's domination of the world is not yet ended. There arc Englishmen who regard the British Empire as being destined to renew the rule of Rome throughout a wider world— an idea that is absurd, as^ being absolutely Utopian. ■•• ■ • The rise and growth of the British Empire have been likened to that of Jonah's gourd: it has been predicted that its decline and disappearance will be similar to that oftho prophet's shade-stalk. But most prophecies arc said to be false or fallacious, except those made after the event— which, o£ course, are always correct. Nevertheless, the body' 1 politic., like the body physical, carries within itself seeds of destruction, even as they display outwardly premonitory signs of decay, declining to dissolution. Life and death are the beginning and end of nature's inevitable, immutable law. Disturbance, disease, and decay arc the portents and precursors of the death of individuals as of nations —■the death of both being 'delayed or hastened according to the quality of the material of which cither is inado, ami the degree of vitality^wumating the individual or the _jujr;pn. None, acquainted with ancient history or that of Ihesr present times will earele.sKly challenge, the 'statement that. the. citizens of the Roman Republic that great Caesar destroyed, were made of sterner material and sturdier stuff than those of the British Empire. They were truer and tougher iv both respects than the polyglot patriots of our parti-colored Empire. Rome was the centre of . the Roman Empire, and claimed and compelled the loyalty and obedience of all Roman citizens and subjects, it was .'under the Rupubiic that Rome conquered,

♦ ' and that Romans laid broad and deep those foundations on which the Empire 'was iSuilt. * . • . ■•■.-,.' That was ' When none were, for a party But all were for the State; before the faction and partisanship of party politics had perverted the aim and- desecrated the very, name of patriot-r-before patriotism came to be the'last refuge oil such scoundrels as Clodius, Milo, and Catiline — when Romans m Rome's quarrels, Spared neither land nor gold, Nor son, nor wife, nor limb, nor life, In the brave, days of old. But. those halcyon days, of healthy sentiment and pure patriotism had passed away long before Julius Caesar, the saviour o£ the nation and founder of Imperial Rome, had swept the rotten Republic away at once and forever. *■•• ■ • • After the murder of Caesar, her social savior and political redeemer, by patrician conspirators against the commonweal, the seeds of dissolution already sown Svithin the body politic began to develop dangerously, and Rome to decline alarmingly. It took a" multitude of internal disorders and eiterinal calamities, spread over fifteen hundred years, to destroy Rome, and hurl her from her proud pre-eminence as Imperial mistress of the world; but once the decline had commenced, the declension steadily .continued till she declined to her final fall. * • • The cause of the decline and fall of Rome constitute the. most intcresting'aud instructive study that can occupy the attention of sage and statesman, poet and student. They are equalled m interest and instruction only by those which contributed to the rise and fall ofvthc first French Republic and to the decline and fall of the first French Empire. But it will be necessary to notice a contention set up by some 1o the effect \ that there can neither bo peri ceivcr nor traced any analogy be- ! tween either the Roman or the French and'lliQ British Umpires. * * * It is contended that the circumstances of the creation and growth of the French and Roman Empires arc too widely different m regard to political and social conditions and m point of time and opportunity to permit of anything more than. an illusory comparison j between them or between those ' two Empires and -the British Empire. The contention is, "prinm facie," a plausible one; examined \ at closer view, it will be found to be based upon British insular pride and national conceit, and altogether without historical warrunt, and devoid of all logical "vraiscmblancc," or weight of j fact or color of reason. * • • In -another article the modern English notion that the British Umpire is under the direct protection and the divine direction of Almighty God will be combated. That the. Creator and Ruler of the world has given special protection, and privilege, and pcrmau-

ericy m perpetuity to the British Empire, and to that Empire alone, i&;a proposition at once so preposterous, and, as it would seem -to v the 'reverent rationalists, so iinpioiisXas almost to amount to blasphemy. It will- be* the purpose of the succeeding article to indicate m what way and to what extent analogies can be traced jn the origin tand growth and decline arid falL'of the Koman and French. Empires/ and to point out how similar analogies can be traced between "them and the British Empire, and to what extent the possible, if not probable, fate of the latter Empire cari.be predicated from those of the other two. To achieve. this ambitious purpose, it will be .necessary to consider and comment upon the condition of Imperial rule prevailing both m Rome and m the provinces, as well as at Paris' and m the French provinces. In doing this, it is hoped that the explanation of Pilate's pusillanimity m consenting to the; crucifixion of Jesus will be f ounicl.' It will .be 'a painful, but withal patriotic, dutyto show that, bad as was the part played by Pilate m that black arid bloody business, it wafe'not a whit worse than that played by modem British pro-consuls— and that, too, m Australasia— in, quite : as black and even bloodier businesses undertaken m the' name of religion ancT patriotism, aii^sancr tioried' Under specious forms of law and travesties of justice. ■ JOHN NORTON. Mount , Victoria! "• Blue Mountains, New South Wales, ; ; Sunday, "''■- June 28th, 1914.