PLAY AND PATRIOTISM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9522, 21 April 1909, Page 2

PLAY AND PATRIOTISM.

DRAMAS THAT HAVE STIRRED NATIONS. "•An Englishman's Home," the play which seems destined to " w;ak« up England" in regard to its duty to defend itself from foreign aggression, and which is now being produced in Sydney, had its counterpart many years ago in "The Battle of Dorking/* Published originally in story form, it was soon dramatised, and created a great stir, besides giving an immense impetus to the Volunteer movement, of that day and generation. The only relic which remains of th»s awakening is. to be found on the top of Box Hill, near Dorking. It consists of a fort, still unfinished, which was commenced as a consequence of the play. The points of similarity , too, between the two productions were many. In it/ as in Major Dv Maurier's cley^ r piece, the foreign invaders made <juick work of bur brave, but. inept, citjzen soldiers; while non-uniformed combatants -were given short shrift, in accordance with the stern, but perfectly legitimate, usages of war. >' By the way,_ this incident of the military execution of a ihouseholdar fcr daring to defend his own home was also used by Zola in " La Debacle," another story, whioh dramatised; stirred France to its profdundest depth. In the United States of America, again, "Unole Tom's CabinY* th« play founded on Mns Beecher Stowe's famous novel, was directly responsible for the tremendous upheaval of public opinion which brought about the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. . Just prior to the outbreak of hostilities itwas estimated that over eight hundred separate companies were . acting the drama throughout the towns and villages of the northern, non-slaveholding States, a record never cv.en remotely approached, before or since, in matters theatrical. As a result the horrors of slavery, as then practised in the South, were brought vividly home to the. people of the North, so that, when President Lincoln called for Volunteers to suppress them four hundred thousand men flew to arms.