DARK DAYS.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 235, 22 June 1918, Page 8

DARK DAYS.

OF A HUN DEED YEABS AGO. The war situation was referred to by Mr. H. Beauchainj} in his address to the shareholders of the Bank of New Zealand yesterday. He sought to show that tne times did not warrant despair, that England had come through other more •lark days.

"The situation to-day," he anid, "is in some respects very similar to that of over a century ago, when our present vi-.liant Allies tho French were, under the leadership of Napoleon, the military aggressors of Europe. Englishmen of that (lav had to face a position far more serinus 'than the present. A contemporary hiN thus described it:— ." 'France had to her credit a long line of glorious victories on tho Continent. England was in n parlous condition. Tho Bank nf England suspended cash payments, and many banks nrashed, while thousands of individuals became bankrupt. There was an expedition to the Dardanelles that was a colossal failure; another to Egypt (hat showed endless incompetence; another to Walchercn. which marked tho boneless stupidity of tho English commanders; and thern was a rebellion in Ireland. • The invader landed in England on three separate occasions; (he Navy *as in mutiny at Spithead nnd at the Nore and blockading T.oiKlon it. a time when Britain was threatened with the combined navies of tho world. . Soldiers ringed the coasts of Britain and practised fighting broast-deep in water; beacon fires were ready to be lighted to give the warning signal; the blockade of Eueland was decreed from IWlin, nid fi'jhtinjr was troins on in every part of thn world; and yet with a tenacity of which we have always been proud, our forVars Vld on nnd endured nil the hardships, horrors, nnd privations nf tbnr. day, in order that we in our turn might emulate their example.' "This i« a picture wliieh should hearten us and fill us with hope for the future Britain has a long war yet to. go before her fortunes are -at as'low an ebb as they were. then. The snme dfl.ej'P'hiras nnd tenacity of miTpo<ie that carried her through then will earrv us fhrougli now Tim raco hni not lest its ,T)gonr and dash! and our soldiers nf to-<lay, with the nseisranoß of our Allies, will «ee (lie war through to a victorious end."