Leslie Howard with Rosamund John in ‘The First of the Few’ (1942).
BRITAIN’S destiny has been to uphold tolerance in religion, thought, speech, and race – the mainspring of democracy. We have still far to travel on the road to true democracy, but only the Germans have made no progress in this direction.
Britain, with her great gifts and strange inconsistencies has helped populate five continents and shown that the white man and the coloured man can live in peace together.
We have also taken the Roman ideal of just administration, the Greek ideal of democracy and freedom of art, and the French tradition of the family unit, along with the Norse courage and loyalty and the Christian faith.
Like all people, we have made some mistakes and have committed some crimes during our history, but we can say that we have built something worthy of our defence. We can look at our record without shame.
Précis
In a radio broadcast in 1940, British actor Leslie Howard explained that Germany had never taken the step forward to democratic freedom that Britain had. Crediting classical culture as well as other European nations and Christianity for Britain’s more forward-looking society, he urged his listeners to feel pride in their sovereignty, and to believe it worth fighting for. (57 / 60 words)
