"THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 281, 16 August 1918, Page 7

"THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH"

l!Ii. MASSEY ON NEW ZEALAND'S WAR EFFORTS TWO EMPIRES COMPARED Spanking at a meeting held under the in spices of tho Imperial Commercial Association iu London on Juno 20, the lJt. Hon. W. F. Masscy, Prime Minister of .New Zealand, referred to the part played by New 'Zealand and her sister dominions in tho war, and in a comparison of British" and German ideals struck a \ery lino note. I do not think," ho remarked, _ that tho taxpayers of this country will ever bo called upon for a drilling in connection with tho New Zealand Army. Whether wo shall be able to continue to meet our own expenditure remains to be seen. It largely depends on your -Shipping Controller. (Laughter.) If your Shipping Controller gives us the ships to carry our produels (I am not finding fault, because I know what is happening), 1 guaranteo that we shall find every penny for financingl our .tlnre in the war." (Cheers.) Toiday there aro 5,000,000 carcasses in our frozen stores waiting for ships to carry them to this side, wo have hundreds of thousands of boxes of butter, scores of thousands of crates of cheese, ;ind other things in proportion, all waiting for ships to bring them over to you. You want them here, and we should .be glad to send them to-morrow if the whips wcro available. ' Probably they will reach this country in due time, and it will bo a satisfactory transaction for 11s both. (Hear, hear.) Now just let mo say a word or two as to tho trade of New Zealand per head of tho populatioii. I believe tluit it conies out at- tho liighest figuro of any population in tho world. You will understand this when 1 101 l you that our exports for the past livo years, liavo not been under ,£30,(100,000' per annum, and, although i cannot give you tho exact figure, I can tell you that onr trade per'head is ovijr .£SO. If any other country in tho world can beat that I should liko to know it. (Laughter.) Later, when tho war is over, and the Inuch-talked-of migration comes about of British citizens, they cannot do better than go to New Zealand. Wo will giv< i hem a hearty welcome, and I feel sure they will never regret it. We are sometimes spoken of as the Britain of tho fcouLh, and I think thero is every reas')n lor that, bccaiiso wo liavo a purely British population, and I believe (hat in years to come New Zealand will do for the Mulheru hemisphere what I am glad to think tho United Kingdom has done for tho northern hemisphere. (Checre.) Wo ar o going ho a maritime people. TTe fchall be farmers, traders, and sailors, and New Zealand will in future do what you. have been doing here for hundreds ot years, and, I hope, with equal success 1 have told you what New Zealand has done during tho war. What the Dominions Have Done, Just lot me say a word now of what 1 the Dominions collectively have done. JJuri.i" tho last four years they have sont VE?nl n 8 Jm l'«'ial Army 110 fewer than 3,000,000 men.. It is almost, incredible } o n e AI OU c ' om . e to think of it- That 1,000,000 men is altogether independent ?, „ J n /' la has done. India has dono itt full duly, and I Jiopc that when vietory is won and peace returns India will get full credit for what tho peoplo of thai, great Empire have done. (Hear, hear.) As for the courage and fighting capacity of the troops of the Dominions, I will simply say this—they have proved themselves worthy of tho stock from which they liavo sprung. (Cheers.) I 'ill? no ' : fimlill S fault with your men. I hey have dono as well as it is possible for any men to do, mid I am glad to acknowiedgo it. I have been told that by soldiers of niy own country, who havo said that the soldiers, from tho United Kingdom have done -as great tilings as tho soldiers of Britain in days gone by, Tir ia ' ' 3 sa y' n E a ff°°d deal. (Cheers.) Ho do not know hoiv long the war will last; we can only-say that we are going on until Germany accepts a peace which will make it impossible for her again to plunge the world into the horrors and to repeat all the crimes and outrages with Wiiich the Press has made us acquainted since the outbreak of the war. I cannot help thinking sometimes, when I read of what has been dono on the' different fronts, of the utter folly of the leaders of the German people, an<l of the Central Powers generally, in supposing, as they evidently did at the outbreak of war, that when hostilities began the British Empire would go *o pieces. How mistaken they have been! (Cheers.) The fact is that tlis harder the fight and the greater the danger the better our eoldiers have fought and the stronger and the moro consolidated the British Empire has become. (Cheers.) With proper and statesmanlike management the Empire in half a century from now wili lie very much stronger and very much larger, and there will be a. far moro numerous Anglo-Saxon population than there is at present. Think of these young nations on the other side of tho world—not all of them 011 tho other side ot tho world—think of Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, each of which can carry .a population of at le.ist twenty times the number of people they have at present. Think of what the Empire will bo in the days to come if it is kept together, and it is ono of the

dearest wishes of my heart Hint it shall votuaiii united. (Cheers.) British ami German Ideals. Olio mistake which is frequently made by pooplo who are not citizens of tho British Empire is this: They think that tho German Empire, and tho British Empire are very much one and the samo thing. As a matter of iact, the policy and ideals of the two Empires aro q'uito separate, and almost completely opposed to olio another. The German Empire stands for oppression, unscrupulousncss, cruelty, for the wiping out of small nations, and the domination of the world by Germany, and if Hi.it ■should be brought about Ihc result would bo to put Jjiick the clock of civilisation far a, thousand years at least. (Hear, hear.) Those are not tho ideals of our Empire. Our ideals and policy are to do everything for tho wellaro and the uplifting of humanity; it is a policy of liberty," freedom, peace, and righteousness, and, so far as the smaller nations lira concerned, to support and protect them in every possible way. (Cheers.) The policy anil Hie ideals of Britain are founded on tho doctrines of Calvary; those of Germany are founded 011 the old religion of Odin and Thor, and those gods who used to bo worshipped in the Oct man forests thousands of years ago. That is the difference between the two. Tho British Empire entered this war not for aggrandisement or to obtain adSitional territory, but to uphold its national honour and to discharge a duty. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacriliced, aud so far as our own Dominion is concerned, we liavo had our full elioro of casualties. There is hardly 11 homo in New Zealand to-day where there is not a vacant chair, but there i are very few—l do not know of any— who regret the sacrifices that have been made.' And just .because these sacrifices have been made, wo feel that, in justice to tho men who aro gono there is nothing Uiat wo can do to bring about victory that must be left undone, and victory ami peace como together. (Cheers.) ' I came across a pathetic incident notf long ago. A • soldier in tho Canadian Army, a man with a.poetic genius, and with what seemed to 1110 to bo a poetic instinct, wrote a beautiful poem ending with these words:— "Take up our quarrel with tho foe, To,you from failing hands tho torch wo throw, Ho yours to hold it high. If we I)reak faitli with 11s who die, We shall not sleep iu Flanders fields." Jle himself was killed not very, long afterwards, and then came the reply from a comrade, who, I believe, is still in the lighting line, and who ended his poem in this way:— "Fear not, that ye have, died for naught, The torch yo flung to us we caught, Ten million hands will hold it high, And freedoms cause will never, die. We learnt, the lesson that yo taught in Flanders Yields." Thero is a lesson for us! (Cheers.) Not only does tho message go out to tho men in tho fighting line, but it comes to all of us to do ■ our duty to tho best of our ability, and to see that the sword is never sheathed until tho object for which wo declared war in 1914 has bccoino an accomplished fact. (Cheers.)