PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2757, 16 January 1907, Page 85

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

"THE FUTURE OF GREAT BRITAIN." Last wpek I outlined Mr Barkei's article up to the ribe of Athens ; and this week, as promised, continue to the rise of England, now the world-wide British Empire. There 16 one flaw in Mr Barker's article : he doesn't trace the downfall of Rhodes. —The Fall of Athens.— But the Athenians became a nation of pleasure-loving idlers and it is &ai<l that 20,000 citizens lived upon the contributions paid by allied and subject States. They ceased to know the word " duty," and foreigners took their places, in the army and navy. —The Rise of Sparta.— Then came Sparta's turn. The Spartans became envious of the wealth and power of the Athenians, and looked down with contempt upon citizens who had mercenaries to fight on land and sea. According to Thucydides, the terrible Peloponnesian war was caused chiefly by the jealousy of the Spartans. As an outcome of the war " Athens lost the rule of the eea. her supremacy in trade, and her colonies." Then Rhodes came to the front. She had remained neutral whilst the terrible struggle was going on, and captured a great deal of the commerce of Athens. She was "excellently eituajed for carrying QD. the trade between Greece, Egypt,

Asia Minor, and between Greece and Italy. Besides, Rhodes had roomy harbours; she was reputed to possess the best sailors of antiquity; her citizens were cultured, progressive, diligent, energetic, and prudent ; and she had excellent sea laws, upon which those of Rome were modelled. Thus commercial and maritime supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean fell to Rhodes." — Fall of Carthage and Rise of Rome. —

"In the centre and west of the Mediterranean Carthage was supreme ; she ruled the eea as absolutely as Rome ruled the land ; and she became the world'? manufacturer. Her navy was considered invincible, and her traders knew no rivals." But she, too, like her predecessors, lost her 6trenuousness. The ruling classes were merchants and bankers, who culti-' vated trade and became immensely wealthy, but who neglected her agriculture and her army, thinking their moneybags and their navy were everything. So Carthage became ease-loving and dependent upon foreigners." Sicily provided Carthage with grain, and Spain was her India, whence she drew her wool for her vast textile industry,, and copper, silver, gold, and precious stones." But Carthage was destroyed. Rome — poor, warlike, ambitious— envied Carthage for her wealth and despised her for her effeminancy and cowardice. The Romans invaded Sicily and Spain, built -'a fleet modelled on the Carthaginian lines, and raised her slaves against her. The upshot was Carthage disappeared, and Rome sat on her ruins and " swept the wealth of the world into Italy with an iron broom." The same process, however, was repeated. " The populace was encouraged and taught to live in idleness on doles and charity. . . . The free peasantry of Italy, being unable to compete with their grain with slave-grown corn, sold under cost,- and were ruined." Agricultural land bifcame pasture land, the peasantry crowded the towns ; and although corn was cheap it was too dear to buy because the population of Rome now consisted of wealthy merchants and idlers and a hungry mob living on charity. "In Caesar's time 320,000 were in receipt of corn gratis. Even that was found insufficient. In the third century after Christ gratis distributions of corn were followed by gratis distributions of meat, oil, salt, wine, etc. . . . The Roman army became an armed mob recruited from the wretched slum proletariat, which possessed neither stamina nor patriotism. Soon . . . Rome had to rely upon foreign' workers and upon foreign mercenaries./ German soldiers garrisoned the capital, and Dutchmen guarded the Emperors. . . . The barbarians attacked Rome, and the gigantic Roman Empire fell to pieces like a pack of cards." 2— Fall of Rome and Constantinople. — ""The. centre of the Roman Empire was then transferred to Constantinople, but it, too, fell as Rome fell. "Constantinople lived on its capital and on foreign tribute, on contributions exacted by force, and on the interest of money lent by her capitalists to productive nations. Constantinople had to- be defended by foreigners against her enemies. When the Turks stormed the degenerate town in 1453, 10 of the 12 commanders on the walls were foreigners. Italians and other foreign soldiers had done most of the fighting." • — The Advent of the Arab. — In the eighth century a new worldpower arose. "The Arabs had rapidly conquered Asia Minor, the whole of North Africa, and Spain. They possessed some of the richest portions of the globe, emmarked upon trade with the production of their vast empire, and soon their commerce embraced the whole world. Arab merchants traded from China to Sweden ; Baghdad became the centre of the world's trade and the world's wealth. During the Middle Ages the great Arab towns were the centres of a new civilisation. The foremost universities and the largest libraries in the woild were those of the Arabs ; the best doctors, the greatest lawyers, the foremost engineers, the leading architects and arti&ts were followers." But the Arab nations lacked unity, and their poirer was destroyed b_v the Crusaders in the East and by the'Spaniaids in the West. —The Rise of the Mediterranean Ports.— Through the Crusaders a vast trade sprang up between Europe and the East. The Italian towns became wealthy and powerful in transporting perhaps millions of horses and men, and jbtained trading facilities and settlements wherever the Crusaders obtained a footing. Oriental spices, sugar, glassware, pottery, silks, tapestries, metal wa*e, arms, etc.^ were brought from the interior of Abia and Africa and carried thiough the Straits of Gibraltar or — aud this mainly — to Italian ports for distribution over the Alps. In this way arose Flcence, Milan, Verona, Lucca, Augsburg, Nuremburg, Strasburg, Cologne, and other cities, which in many ca^es became centres of small but powerful republics. First to come to tl>c front was Amalfi, a native of which introduced the compass. It had about 50,000 people in it, but it fell before the jealous Pisans, and was reduced to what it still is — not much more than a village. But "those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword," and Pisa, a city of 150,000 inhabitants— probably the largest town in Europe^ — was overwhelmed by the Genoans, between whom and Venice there was great rivalry. After three centuries of warfare Venice by a mighty effort destroyed her rival, and at the beginning of the fifteenth century was at the height of her power. She ruled the sea, she cdnquered and colonised the islands and the coasts of the Mediterranean, and she became the head of a vaßt colonial empire and the centre of the world's trade, the world's wealth, and the world's art. The sea was covered with Venetian ships, manned by no fewer than 50,000 sailors." — The Fall of the Mediterranean Ports.—

For centuries, while this making and unmaking of nations was going on in the Mediterranean, then the centre of trade

and commerce, new centres of civilisation had been springing up on. the shores of the North and the Baltic Seas. . Flanders and Brabant provided Muscovy, Sweden* Norway, Denmark, and Germany with tex« tile fabrics and other wares in eichangd for timber, corn, wool, pitch, hemp, furs, etc. In this way sprung up Lubeck, Bremen, and Hamburg and the Hanseatic League. The imperfect state of navigat tion in those day 6 led to the Hanseatio League establishing a halfway house between Italy and the Baltic towns ; henc« the foundation of the greatness of Bruges as a kind of international exchange mart — ■ Venice and Bruges became the two poles round which the commercial world revolved. But now a great change takes place.

When Vasco da- Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope it wa§ seen that Oriental goods could be brought to Europe more cheaply by the new route. The current of the world's trade altered its course. Venice and the Mediterranean ports generally sank almost into oblivion, and Lisbon became the halfway house between Asia and Euiope. Then Flanders and Brabant were the Lancashire of Europe. Arras, Ypres, Mechlin, Ghent, Brussels, Liege, Namur, and Bruges provided the world ■with manufactures of every kind. — The Fall of Flanders and Antwerp. — But Flanders and Brabant, like those that had gone down before them, negkcted their agricultural industries and the power of bearing arms. Ypres and Bruges, each with its 200,000, fell away almost to villages after the onslaught of the Dukes of Burgundy had reduced Flanders and Brabant to impotence, and the leading merchants migrated to Antwerp, which became the commercial and financial centre of Northern Europe. But the triumph of Antwerp was shoTt-lived, for townsmen know better how to shout than how to fight. When the Dutch and Belgian Netherlands rcee in rebellion against the tyranny of the Spaniards Antwerp under, and tradeib rlew to Amsterdam. —The Rise of Holland.— TLe Dutch Netherlands being comparative]}- poor and possessing a warlike population fought bravely, and expelled the Spaniards ; not only that, but began to attack the Spanish colonies and trade, to \ which had been added, about 1580, the colo- j nies and trade of Portugal. "Before the great ! Eighty Years' war Spain was the richest nation in the world and the strongest on land and sea. At the end of that war the industries of Flanders and Brabant, and the wealth of the Spanish -Portuguese Empire and its most valuable colonies, had passed into the hands of the Dutch. Besides, the Dutch, having chaeed the Spanish and Portuguese ships from the ocean, had conquered the rule of the sea. By the sword the Dutch had won industrial, commercial, and maritime supremacy the world over. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Dutch had, according to Sir' Walter Raleigh and many other reliable writers, a greater merchant marine than all other nations combined. New York, then called New Amsterdam, was a Dutch settlement ; Brazil was conquered by the Dutch from the Portuguese ; India was dominated by Dutchmen ; the Spice Islands, the most valuable point on the African coast, and the Cape of Good Hope, were Dutch. The world was dotted with Dutch naval stations. The Dutch possessed a world-wide empire similar to the British world-wide empire of to-day. . The trade of England and France was carried) in Dutch bottoms. Amsterdam financed the world. The whole world was tributary to Holland. But Holland was to decline like her predecessors, and principally through the same causes." When Holland was in her prime, <%England was a third-rate Power and a purely agricultural and pastoral country, whence Flanders and Brabant drew the wool they needed. The greatest British maritime industry was piracy." —The Fall of Holland and Rise of England. — Ihen came England's turn. Proud of her wealth, and confiding in it and her semi-insular position, which could bo made completely insular by piercing her dykes, Holland neglected her army and tho«e industries which raise food and warlike men. "Her agriculture hardly sufficed to nourish one-eighth of her inhabitants, and she allowed her mighty fisheries, whence she drew her seamen, to be captured by foreigners. About 1652 Cromwell, taking advantage of her weaknesses, attacked her, and his 'colonels at sea,' Blake, Dean, Monk, and Popham, defeated with their infantry the ablest Dutch admirals and seamen." Upon this came Cromwell's Navigation Laws, which crippled the marine commerce of Holland and established that of England in its stead. The downfall of Holland was hastened by th j protective policy instituted by France. Holland maintained her Freetrade policy, and this materially helped her rivals. The Dutch now being out of the way, the interests of France and Great Britain clashed, and the Seven Years' war and th* Napoleonic wars were the result. In th-e latter the devastation of Europe made for Continental bankruptcy tlie while that England, free from the horrors of war in her own borders, was building up a monopoly in trade and commerce. So "England became the manufacturer, trader, shipper, banker, financier of the world. The whole world was pawned to Englishmen." Mr Barker then sketches swiftly the modern industrial history of England, and it is not necessary for me to follow him. We who have read the history of the last half-century all know how we stood alone in our iron, steel, woollen, cotton, and other industries, and how Germany, the United States, and Japan are beating us. We know, too, that Germany and Japan can put trained citizens into the field in larger numbers than we can ; that their navies, their industries, their exports are increasing in greater ratio than ours are ; that our Mother Country is dependent upon foreigners for corn ; keeps to Freetrade, which is said to have ruined Holland and other nations in the pa&t ; and appears , to show that, in other respects, she has reached the zenith of her power, if she has not passed it. Is Mr Barker too i>efcsimistic, and is it possible for us by Imperial organisation or by federation to put the Empire upon a still higher eminence? It will rest with us and the next generation, probably, to show what the destiny of the Empire is to be — to higher heights or to the depths occupied by the decayed nations of the past. — Butcher (to applicant for situation): Let me bear you go through the weight's table. Appl'cant : Fourteen ounces mako one pound, and . Butcher; That'll do. L I'll engage you. ]