THE TWO NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 79, 27 December 1917, Page 4

THE TWO NATIONS

DISCIPLINE, MILITARY AND NATIONAL AN INTERESTING CONTRAST (By a New Zealand Medical AJan in France.) A New Zealand medical nan who li'is just completed t.hroo years en active, service, writes interestingly from Franco to his parents in Wellington of his observations of the men ei-gaged in the great conflict, and incidentally has something tq,say of tho discipline of tho Germans. Wo seo (he states) the American troops daily arriving here. ._ . . What a reputation the Anzaos have niado even here in Franco! Wo are all very pleased with this last offensive. It lias gone like clock-work, and we hope yet for grout things, "i-he key of whatever success the Hun has had lies in discipline. As an array of fighters the discipline is superb. The individual Hun is a model of discipline. Pass through a ward whore, amongst the British wounded, there are perhaps a handful of Huns. Tho senior n.c.o. or private of Uie_ Huns will call his brothers to attention at once with a click. Whenever they are iii tho ward. So long as the medical ofliooi is on duty in that ward they will automatically stand stiff and rigid, heads erect and faces fixed to the front, and expressionless—alert—respectful to a degree.

, though Comparisons be Odious 7 Comparisons are odious. We do not profess the German ideal. We are not disciplined either collectively or individually. We are not a nation of' soldiers, but a nation of fighters. But to see our men lolling about a ward even on the entry of a edonol —cigarettes stuck in their mouths—oh, ye?'. It may not count much >v!ien it comes to going over the parapet, but it is significant on broad lines of a lack of discipline at home—everywhere—in tho fabric.

Take tho humblest country German soldier. He is alert, quick, respectful, keen, drilled, attentive— submissi/o to seniority. Take our country lads, say from Yorkshire, they are as game as pebbles—steady as a rock —but. oh—such slack—lumpy—loosejninted fellows—and an utter lack of thete qualities above referred to. Their facial expression is a pleasant smiling vacancy-i-dear good fellows who fight like true Britishers. But train them—drill them from ton to 'fifteen years of their lives—teach them discipline from boyhood to manhoodknock respectfulness and recognition of seniority into them—teach them initiative and self-reliance—and do all this as a national training—a sino qua non of citizenship—and see what a nation of soldiers and fighters we would have.

German Essentials for Warring. 1 have put it this way because it has occurred to me that the principles of obedience and discipline are the essentials upon which the German Eeaurociacy and Higher Military Command have controlled their man-powor to oxtort from it the maximum of light and efficiency. Germany has put up the gieatest fight for all time, and it could never have been performed without a discipline which gripped every unit; in the country. You r.iay call it martial law—military slavery—despotism, or anything you like. During this war they control labour by discipline—and enforce discipline by the Army. Otherwise they would have collapsed, victims to Socialism —strikos—.internal strife—dissolution and revolution—long ago.

A contrast between the handling of the Irish question and ccrtnin of our great labour problems at Homo since August, 1914, makes one sad. It is pathetic to have a nation like ours placed by a great national crisis in the position of sacrificing its host and bravest troops in the battlefield to sav3 the necks of thousands nt Home, who refuso responsibility, and whom w>, havo no adequate mechanism to control. Workman v. Soldier. The respectivo positions of a conscript soldier out here and a workmau in a factory at home are strikingly different. One 'gets a shilling a day and the other gruuiblos if he doesn't get a shilling an hour. One takes up his kit and his rifle and goes forth to war to the most frightful hell conceivable on earth, whore ho counts as a number on a metal disc. Eiß sacrifice is supremo. Tho other remains at home as a munition worker. Ho smtigly asserts his position in the State. His importance lends him security. Protection by labour laws and clasß unions renders him impudent and truculent. • He is securo and comfortable. He is earning double what ho ever earned before the war, and he is spending twice as much. At any given moment | his class is so strong as to arrest and j dislocate thoso processes of' industry upon which tho military life depends. A trike of 24 hours means a shortage of 100 aeroplanes, and a direct interference with tho actual fighting at the front. It is an unthinkable position for a country to bo in. In a" war the solution is given by Germany. Every malo unit is equally the property of'the nation, and military law should compel. As a result of our muddle and lack of discipline in every department, thousands of lives have been sacrificed and the war needlessly prolonged. My own opinion is that great and good as Lloyd Georgo is—great organTsor, splendid leader—yet he feels ho is sitting on a powder magazine. He dare not touch certain huge classes of operatives at home. The difficulties of his problem havo been, and are, enormous. And they all arise out of the principles of living in Great Britain before the war. Teace and prosperity wore our watchwords. There was no individual restraint imposed by the State. Each man or collection of men was allowed to go as he pleased. State responsibility or obligation to iho nation were not recognised—nor was tho contingencv of a great national war dreamed of.

Christianity Our Saving Grace. There is only one other thought, apropos of this discipline which everybody hero has Recognised long ago, and that is civilisation. I've been thinking a good deal about this culture and civilisation of the nations. I have had a fair opportunity of seeing a good many nationalities represented here, and I have come to the conclusion that there is onlv one race, that approximates to civilisation, and that is the British-speaking race. There arc strong elements of primitive man m the French, Portuguese, Italians, Spanish, Russians, Rumanians, etc. I fancy, after all, mind you, the Frenchman is tha next most civilised to the Britishspeaking races. But ho lias a long, long way to go. For after all it is not science and art that Rive civilisation, nor is it intellect and knowledge; nor is it anv system of logic or ethics or philosophy. The Germans ■ have all these. After careful reflection I honestly believe that the paramount factor in civilisation is Christianity, it is the difforentia which separates the British-speaking races from all those others. I do not moan to imply that as a race we are devout or steoped in religion. Rut added to the science and art "and culture and philosophy which ,we share alike with Germany, there lias been added a great mellowing, refining—humanising— broadening influence which I believe has reached

more universally into tho individual lives of tho masses of tho Britishspeaking races than into those of any other—that influence is Christianity. 'There is a humaneness—a tenderness— a kindliness—a gentleness—and a spirit of charity iu our races that you find lacking in tho German and Frencii. The Hun a Modern Savage, What I mean to say is that you can have a modern intellectual and cultured savage. Tho Hun perhaps is tho host type. The French approximate. Cruelty—innate cruelty—is one of tho illustrations of the absence of real civilisation and the presence of aboriginal temperament. Our men are so kind to one another, and even to "old Fritz'" when tho heat and fury of fighting has passed off aud the infuriated blood is cool. See our big, hairy, bronzed, rough Australian straight from tho bush and tho Btation and the shearing board. Seo him walking back off No Man's Land with his left arm shot through and hanging by the skin—he is blackened by smoke, dirt and sweatlie is fatigued to the uttermost. Ho refuses to be carried in a stretcher because he knows a stretcher means a. party of three or four men, and a shell may kill the lot, and the bearers are so few and so precious. He insists he' is able to walk—at least half way—they can carry him the rest. As he proceeds back towards the rear— amongst the shell-holes—he comes up to another like himself, only weaker. Ho puts his right arm round bis pal—they support each other. Ho has a great big heart. There are thousands liko him. It is a common scene. Ido not know whether thiß is Christianity or mute animal instinct of ono man suffering for another, but I know no Britisher could operate on a wounded man and do a big sore operation without •administering an anaesthetic. • .The Huns do it—do it to our wounded. The French do it to their own wounded. I have seen them. In short, 1 think all our magnificent literature, impregnated as it is in the spirit and teachings of Christianity, has already done its work and will go on doing it. You cannot disseminate the Bible for nothing. You will get results. You cannot have Miltous and Shakespeares and Snencers and Brownings and Keats and Wordsworths, etc., without results. You cannot flood a country in literature like that from tlje pens of the great Revivalists for nothing. Thero is also the quota from the pens of scientists, artists, discoverers, geographers, missioners, etc. What . a great and glorious assemblage of men 1 We have tho world's asset in this respect. . I include tho Americans and their great men. After all, what has advanced German thought done but try to disassociate morality and ethics from Christianity ?