"SILENT AND BUSY"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2540, 14 August 1915, Page 10

"SILENT AND BUSY"

: SERBIAN TRIBUTE TO ENGLAND AN'ISLAND'S LEGIONS " i. The following eloquent tribute; to England, moving in its expression , of the deep faith which tho smaller nationalities have in our country, . and inspiring in its incentive to act : in tho present according to tho traditionsi of a great past, is from tho . pen of a Serbian writer, SI. Lazare ■ Kossovac, and has been contributed] I to the official Serbian journal "Samouprava. - Tho English people are silent; but it is remarkable that when these northern men begin to speak thoy are more eloquent than wo of the south. More eloquont is Macaulay than Mirabeau, and Carlylo than Renan, and Gladstone than Mazzini. As if tlie chill northern mists pressed upon tho mouth, their thoughts come to the tongue and go back from the tongue again unexpressed. Englishmen are silent and thoughtful. Never was this island more silent, nioro thoughtful, or moro busy than it is now. Tile war has given to the wholo of Great Britain a solemn aspcct. As I stepped upon British soil at Folkestone, I. felt as though I had_ entered Westminster Abbey. All this island is transformed into an abbey; every man is' silent, thoughtful, and busy. ' In the Dardanelles five great battleships have gone down. In tho southern lands such losses would caiffeo countless comments; but they cause Englishmen to become only, more silent, ' thoughtful, and busy. Iri the Atlantic there was committed the "Suporinan" 'crime of the Lusitania, which like some !vast sarcophagus was laid on the floor 'of the deep. But in England, as the miws arrives, lips are only pressed more tightly,' the fira-in- is more intensely concentrated, and tasks are more bravely seized. The Zeppelins make daily competition with their brothers tho submarines in tho destruction of.. private property and of unarmed and innocent people. At home poisonous bombs may fall from airships, while poisonous gases choke the heroic men in the trenches. • Day by day appear the long coloumns of killed and wounded. But the granito •inland is silent, thoughtful, and busy! .'.Thus it makes answer to all calamity. ' Tho English have to-day a veritable sea dominion from Polo to Polo. If their duty to the Allies was to freo the waters, thoy have done that duty brilliantly. To-day a Serbian can embark at Salonilsa, and travel through Suez 'to tho Antipodes, around tho gioheand back through Gibraltar Salonika again. During the whole journey lie >ill travel upon the friendly English green sea-fie!ds. English power upon the waters was never realised in such' measure —and so effectively—as now. Never was thero in history upon land' such power as the English arc exercising now upon the seas. Yoii will say, "The waters arc only a highway, nothing more." No, tho waters are more than. a. highway. Thoy represent liinctenths of tho best strategio positions, .which, thanks to. these Britons, are now'in our possession; but which, without these Britons, had certainly been iu German hands.' ' A free highway of the sea preserves tho Allies from starvation, makes possiblo the transport of men and munitions, and _ transforms what would be otherwise widely-scatter-ed parts into a well-knit and inseparable wholo. Imagine if it wero not so; imagine if the Germans had such do.'minion on the waters! Their battleships would now be at Salonika, Kronstadt, Vladivostock, at Naples, Map seilles, and Odesso, at Jaffa and Bombay. Thon, from all these sides would creep the Geirman hosts; and who knows how many tribes and nations would not now be fighting against us on the Prussian side? It is, indeed, our happiness that these nine-tenths of tho best-strategio positions the English are holding now and not the Germans.

: English people know all this very well, but they never talk about it. They keep silent arid. think about their own merits! But they are not silent in regard to the merits of their Allies. There has not been a single snccess, not tho smallest achievement of Russian, French, or Sorbian arms, which has not been generously praised by these silent' Britons. Our Serbian successes at Rudnik and Kosmai have beon acknowledged by nono so warmly as tho English people. Merely chronicling their own successes, they havo described in glowing details the successes of their Allies. How beautiful and delicate are the letters of English correspondents from Russia. And as they havo been eloquent in praise of the successes of their Allies, so theso thoughtful island people have been not less eloquent in sympathetic descriptions of the losses and pains of their friends. One could make books of the articles depicting Serbia's sufferings from typhus, devastation, and want. x The same is true in. regard to Belgium. One might think that the English had 110 pain and suffering of their own. Oh! yes they ha-ve, and not a little; but they are silent, and: in silence they tend.their own wounds'and bear their own distress. Silently and thoughtfully they have freed all the seas, from the frigid to tlio torrid zone. But they-have not stopped there; they are helping now to free tho dry land. Their troops are fighting day. and night in Belgium,' in Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia, in South Africa. Thoy have made superhuman efforts to create land forces in as many months as any Continental Power has taken .years. We from a distance behold onl.v'tlio glorious sea power of Great Britain which has just been displayed to all the world. But we do not see these gigantic internal moral efforts which are not less magnificent than her sea dominion. Marius said, "As soon as I stamp my foot .upon the ground, so sooii will arise the legions!" That, however, was only the idle word of a. southern mind. King Georgo has silently put his foot upon the earth, and there has in l very truth arisen, legion after legion. And they are Arising still! In this point Germany alono has been sctf-deceivefd, and the whole world surprised. All the world regarded the British Isles as the empty wooden horse before tho gates of Troy." Albion has shown herself more deft -fen Ulysses; but she remains very silent, very thoughtful, and very busy. That a land may gain a, nimbus of grandeur and! beauy, there must appear upon it a great -race or a great man. In this point C'arlyle was right. Before the English, people, this misty and humid island stood low and unceirtaiii as if it might sink beneath the' -waters. But to-day it stands as fast as granite, appears to be firmer than tho European Continent, and rises higher than the Alps. And upon this loßty toclc stands a nation as one man and as if placed by Providence as sentinel to view' with watchful eye every comer of our planet And evory movomeht of: nearly two milliard of human beings of all -races, all religions, and all 'States,

Somewhere' the sun gl&mg warm' and bright, Somovrhot'o I'lio skies, ai'o clear, dear; Thereto tlio birds ha,vo winged ■■ their flight, "Whilst here J tis sct.o and drear, "dear. Corao! nestle by, the -blazing logs, You're chilled and;/ tired, I'm sure, dear; Best warm and closc.jand drinlc this dosa Of Woods' Great 'Peppermint Cure, dear.—Advtj Gray's immortal?, i", Elegy"-' took him soven yoars to Tvcrifce. ■ A jlanawatu for sale 6V exohange, In Mmtifljjd or ; satt' Mtitt'i