BACK FROM THE WEST FRONT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 308, 17 September 1918, Page 6

BACK FROM THE WEST FRONT

NEW ZEALAND EDITORS VISIT THE BATTLEFIELDS WAR AT CLOSE QUARTERS AN INSPIRING MESFAiE FROM •' MR. FRED. I'IRANI We have received the following message by Press Association from Mi'. Fred. Pirani, the representative'of the Provincial Press with the New Zealand editors who are visiting the Mother Country and the Western front at the invitation of the Imperial Government :— London, September 13. The Editorial Mission returned to London to-day after an extensive tour of France and Flanders. _ The New Zealand delegates, and, indeed, tho whole party of overseas editors, have been greatly impressed bv what they were privileged to see and to learn on and behind the historic Western front. We Irnve seen the great war machine working at high pressure—i) marvel of stupendous and complicated organisation, running with seeming miraculous smoothness and precision. We have seen our splendid men at work, talked .with them about their experiences, listened.with delight to their eagerly told tales of some other fellow's dauntless valour —never by any chance do they enthuse about what they themselves liavo done—and discovered renewed insoira'tiou in their cheerful optimism. ■ Here and there in the semi-confidential privacv of mess-room or billet one heaTd whispers of sins of omission and commission, stories of somebody's alleged blunders, lint these are matters which, if they do not lack foundation in fact, must bp left to bo "washed up" after the war. Meantime they_ are but incidents, more or less inevitable happenings, in the world-redeeming enterprise to which we have set our hands. When we' left New' Zealand the Hun was shaking his'mailed fist at a threatened Paris and making the world gasp lest by his prodigal onslaught he should wrest the long-coveted Channel ports from the heroic defenders ; The spring carnival of slaughter was in full swing, and the issue was still in doubt What has happened in tho interim you in New Zealand know. Our gallant troops have sprung from the defensive to the offensive. They have swept back the Huns, and are still pushing forward. Thousands upon thousands of prisoners edged behind the Allied lines testify to the success of their heroic operations. Paris the Beautiful is still the undisturbed capital of La Belle France. The Channel ports still fly the Allied flags. America has continued to make good Britannia still rules the waves And the End, though not yet, is nearer than—but there I I' am neither a prophet nor the son of a _ prophet. This, thought, I can say, for it is writ large on all that! we have seen: Unto us is to ho the victory. Everywhere, in the base camps,,in the billets behind tho lines, in tile battered and bloodstained trenches, on the crowded roads, everywhere amidst this welter of blood and pain, aye, even in the hospitals on the wan, drawn faces of the battle-torn heroes it is written: Unto us is to lie the victory. Why? Because the salvation of humanity and the preservation of democracy demands it; because "ight must prevail over Might; because, despite our nation:tl_ sins and shortcomings, wo are in this fight on the side of God, and under His Almighty Captaincy defeat is unthinkable. No man could walk over the ground hallowed by the life-blood of so many of our dearest kinfolk without being touched by the overwhelming sadness of it all. War from near at hand looks so terribly different: it it ifriphtful, it is ghastly, yet it is wonderfully and awfully grand; it calls to the imagination the soul-stirring harmonv of tho Dead -March as it might bo pWed bv a thousand mighty bands, followed by the Glory Song as sung by a'l tho sons of men in unison with the r.orntless choirs of Heaven. That i's why we editors have como back from he AVesterii front with this sonc of victory on our lips. We have, been where' things petty and littlo pole into insignificance, where only the one big thing counts, where the brotherhood of maiC welded in the furnace of pair; and suffering, finds its fullest and truest expression, and where in the inscrutjblo wisdom of the. Omnipotent there is being worked out a row and better order of things. Our message to you all is: ''Carry on. All will be well."