Apt. 26...
opening the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, it was almost inevitable that the King should refer to the exhibition opened in Hyde Park in' 1851, the purpose of which, in the words of Prince Albert, was to "'give to the world a true test, a living picture, of the ° point of industrial development at which the whole of mankind has ar. rived, and a new starting point from'which all nations will be able to direct their further progress." To many thoughtful people the Exhibition of 1851 meant far more; they believed if indicated that a new ern had dawned of general prosperity, peace and goodwill among the nations of the world. 'The Kiope was not realized. "From that yont, 1851," writes one historian,' "it may be said fairly enough that the world has hardly known a week of pence." Me stead of deriding the Victorians for not being able to discern the signs of the times, it may be worth while to consider for moment why their expectations failed, In thie first half of thio last century England was possi through a great industrial revolution." Wonderful mechanic. al inventions gave man an entirely new control over the forces of Nature and a new knowledge of its laws. Tu England new industries and enterprises were everywhere successively started, the conditions being peculiarly favourable to their development, The population increased rapid ly; a new social order was built up; education became more common; personal and political liberties were won; the corn laws were repealed and free trade established; exports and imports increased by leaps and bounds; taxation was extraordinarily light compared with what it is to-day, and the dominions beyond the sens were being peopled and consolidated, Further, it was confidently expected by' the commercial and manufacturing classes, which had now become very powerful, that all. other civilized nations would adopt free trade, and that free trade, in and by itself, wotild gradually break down the hostile barriers between nation and nation and bring in the reign of internation. al peace and friendship. England's own army had been reduced to almost nothing, and i¢ was hoped that militarism was a thing of the past. Altogethier, it was a time of astonishing tess and there' was unbounded faith that it would always continue. So, a8 Dean Ingo says, "we decided to invite the world and his wife to London, to eny; and admire us in Sir' Josepht Paxton's great glass house, that mausoleum of _generou hopes.""
Wherein lay the error of thie mid-Victorians? They _underestimated the strength and vitality of the.spirit of nationality, and vastly overestimated commerce and trade as a basis of national goodwill. As the Great War showed, when national and racial passions are aroused, trade, commerce and money lconnt for very little. And in times of peace, so far, every nation continues to follow the policy it deems best for its own strength and unity, irrespective lof the interests of other nations, When international unity comes it ill rest on a more ethical basis than self-interest; thera will"be a fuller recognition of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.