DECADENT ENGLAND

Otago Witness, Issue 3783, 14 September 1926, Page 32

DECADENT ENGLAND

A TOTTERING COLOSSUS. AN AMAZING JEREMIAD. LONDON, September 9. Dean Inge doubly justifies the title of “the gloomy dean” in a book which is being published to-morrow entitled “England.” An extract reads: “British naval supremacy is ended and with it the instrument by which we have built up and maintained the Empire. We are no longer rich enough to build ships against possible rivals. The Americans, by insisting on the repayment of the debt which we incurred on behalf of France and to which we rashly put out names have secured that we shall remain permanently tributary to them and incapable of challenging them on the water. Our position as a world Power is permanently altered for the worse. It may well be that the historian of the future will record the end of the nineteenth century or the death of Queen Victoria as the culminating

point of England as a world Power. Since then Colossus has tottered. We are gov trned by Scots, Welsh, Irish and Jews. The whole position has changed radically for the worse. The day of the amateur with haphazard methods is over. This is not a good thing for England.” Dean Inge thinks that the loyalty of the dominions, though it was shown splendidly in war time is less wholehearted than could be wished. The future of Canada is problematical, and the danger of her Americanisation is ever present. Tlie future of India is lying on the knees of the gods. A Socialist Government would be a signal for dangerous disturbances in India. Uncertainty about the future is doing incalculable harm to the British flag. He says: “The whole machinery of the Empire is in chaos It holds together because there is an abundance of goodwill—not because the gossamer threads joining the parts could bear the slightest strain. There is no disguising the fact that England is in a Hate of chronic civil war. The forces of law and order are on the defensive. It is too early to predict that the virtual independence of the dominions will be permanently compatible with membership in the Empire. The strongest tie in the absence of coercion must be selfinterest. This motive is strongest in Australia and New Zealand where the protection of the fleet is necessary in the face of probable Oriental ambitions. It is the almost universal belief of Australians that the unrestricted settlement of Chinese and Japanese would bring insupportable conditions to a race with higher standards. The policy of a White Australia can only be maintained while it is possible to exclude Asiatics by force. It is unlikely that Australia will wish to cut the painter when the probably result would be an unsuccessful war with Japan and China. Should the British fleet be unable to protect Australia and New Zea land probably they will endeavour to come into closer relations with the United States. The real danger is the dog-in-the-manger policy of dominion Labour towards migration and the unfitness of the degenerate population at. Home and their reluctance to emigrate.”