Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1926. DEAN INGE ON ENGLAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 4 December 1926, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1926. DEAN INGE ON ENGLAND.

Dean Inge, in his book on England, which lias just been issued, states that morals in England are decaying. •‘Licentiousness is justified in our fiction and not reprobated in society, i’lie monogamous family is being broken up, and therewith the strongest bulwark of civilisation against disintegration and anarchy is being undermined.” Governments are 'spineless', polities degenerate, and the electors ignorant and indolent. England is ruled by Scots, Welsh, Irish and Jews. Love of country is bad form. The living patriotism of a Kipling or a. Henley is discredited. Ministers weakly yield to pressure. ‘‘The most disgraceful ease of all was the long series of felonious acts committed by a gang of women actuated by a mixture of hysteria, hooliganism and s'exual perversity, who professed by their crimes to be demonstrating their fitness for the duties of citizenship. The Government quailed before these furies.” But this statement is' hot fair. The Government did not give way to the suffragists. Their campaign ceased upon the outbreak of war, and did not gain women the franchise. The latter was granted in 1918, in recognition of their services during the war. The outlook for Britain overseas is equally » unpromising in the eyes of the author. He admits* that the response of the dominions in the war was splendid, but he thinks, that their loyalty is ‘‘ less wholehearted than an Englishman could wish.” He condemns the “dog-in-the-manger policy” of Labour in the dominions. He 'believes that Canada is the United States’ for the taking, lie says' that, the chief bond of union among the Irish wherever they go is “an almost insane hatred against England,’ and that the surrender to Ireland is perhaps “the most shameful event in English history.” Yet, 'dark though the present is' .and darker though the future may be, Dean Inge is proud to claim England its bis native land. ‘‘l liave laid bare my hopes and fears for the country that 1 love. This much ! can avow, that never, even when the xt-orin clouds ,appear blackest, have L been tempted to wish that I was other than tin Englishman.” With Dean Inge pessimis'm is not a pose or a fad. His sinceritv cannot be questioned. He is genuinely convinced that there is something rotten in the State of England. But his book contains a great

deal of highly debatenble mutter. Many will find themselves in violent disagreement ■with the Dean. They will insist that liiff diagnosis is wholly, at, fault. Many will challenge both liis premises and his conclusions. Nevertheless, lie has written a thought-provoking study.