The Wanganui Chronicle. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1930. BACK IN THE “EIGHTIES”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 429, 21 November 1930, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1930. BACK IN THE “EIGHTIES”

£)EAN INGE provides in himself the reason for his not being ashamed of belonging to the Eighties. He is undoubtedly one of the finest minds of this age and if the Eighties gave him to English life it says much for that period. Dean Inge asks, “Why should Ibe ashamed of it’!’’ Surely no one would ask him to be. “Were not the girls prettier?” is an unfair question. Those wh'o were not alive then are not in a position to challenge the question, but there appears to be no reason for assuming that the girls were more pleasing to the eye. Nature has not changed his trade. Tennyson and Browning may have been greater poets than the Georgians, and Gladstone and Disraeli were certainly outstanding men whom, it is safe to say, would have stood out prominently in any age. But two poets and two politicians do not make an age. Indeed their dominance in their own time may have been accounted for by the poor quality of those who surrounded them. Napoleon has been called the last Great Man, but Victor Hugo aptly remarked that the Great Man had to make way for the Great Age, and by the Great Age Hugo meant the age when the general level of accomplishment was higher.

During the fifty years the standard of education has advanced, problems have become more complex and in consequence the stage lias not been set for great personalities such as were Disraeli and Gladstone. Men have been compelled to pay more detailed attention to problems; broad outlines are not required to be drawn because they have become established. Many of the debates of fifty years ago appear to be trivial and indeed inconsequential. They would not engage public attention now because they are not big enough. The Dean is an adroit debater, for he does not seek to establish his argument himself, but addresses questions awkward of answer, instead of doing his own arguing-. But if a parallel is to be afforded by Disraeli's great achievement at the Congress of Berlin it must be admitted that it fades into insignificance besides the Peace Conference at Versailles. Gladstone’s great budgets were meritorious but recent British Chancellors have grappled with much larger problems than Gladstone ever dreamed of, and the fact that such heavy income tax is being borne by the community is indeed something more to be proud of than anything else. In this age the “dole” is denounced, but it is more creditable than herding the unemployed in workhouses or letting them starve as they did in the Eighties. Dean Inge can be proud of the Eighties but. the current Thirties provide more for pride.