MEANING OF THE FLAG.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 279, 4 December 1901, Page 4

MEANING OF THE FLAG.

BY TOHUNGA.

’l'li- children of Auckland Province. >'h any rate and to he sure the dour Scots oi oppusmg Otago will not he behind us m this— are to lie taught 'toil! then lisping days that to keep the flag flying is among the mam reasons for their being. They are to ' be i aught to set it above tiie reputation of the local football team and t even above the renown of Advance. ! They are to learn that twice two 1 make four, and that if a man tries to puli down the Hag shoot him on the | spot ; which arouses the ill-feeling of those who hate to hear the flap of the bunting, since they conceive that the flag means a state of affairs of which they disapprove. On this, an Auckland school teacher and the Auckland Hoard of Education have joined issue. Hut the children of this Province are to be taught to salute the flag, nevertheless, and if any teacher has a little rival system of his own he must practice it outside of our provincial schools. That is the Board’s verdict, and the public verdict is evidently one of solid confirmation. Wherefore, it may be wise of us to inquire what the flag means. To what sentiment, to what emotions, do we appeal when we so unitedly agree to train our children to look upon the British flag as a sacred symbol and demand that their teachers shall ceaselessly inspire them to be ready, eager, and willing to die in its defence ? The answer is easy. That flag which flies from the school masts means our new horn nationality ; it means the realisation of the eternal truth that Man is greater than Geography, the reading aright of the riddle of Babel. And the reading of the riddle of Babel is that division of language will tear down the strongest Umpire, that no tower of civilisation can tie built to reach into the heaven of peace and security unless it be founded on a homogenous people, and by men who understand eacli other. That .flag has come to mean the British race and the English tongue ; it inis grad-

ually come to symbolise all our national hopes and all our national ideals. It means to-day that wherever two or three of British birth are gathered together that (lag symbolises their unity with their fellows, that to the. one man standing alone it is still the pledge of the nation’s loyalty to him. For all loyalties are reciprocal. And the lad who learns that he should be proud to die to uphold the nationality which the flag symbolises knows that he and his are safe and secure because of the readiness with which a worldwide nation would march to death for him and his. Our dissentient school-teacher correctly says that this saluting of the flag is new, that, men did not use to do this thing, and that eminent men in the Old Country oppose the sentiment it embodies. This is most true. Our infant Empire nearly perished upon the earth because its giddy Mother, old enough to know better, coquetted with every smoothed-tongued foreigner who flattered her, and left her House to neglect and confusion. Our British nationality of to-day, living and throbbing in live continents, drawing closer and closer to the twin nationality of America, exists and triumphs in spite oi the British Governments of the past, is a .stupendous proof of how little the individual can do to alter the direction given to his race and people by all-prevailing Fate. That flag which floats to-day over our Auckland schools does hot tell of foreign dominion or Imperial control, but of an inherent nationality which rose triumphant over foreign influences and Imperial follies. These Manchester doctrinaires never wanted us at all. They always hated sentimental attachments which involved risks and responsibilities as much as they loved sentimental amusements that left them altogether free, They tlid not want either New Zealand or South Africa for their race. They did not care whether Australia was noisy with Chinese gongs or clattering with school-bells. They were the children oi those long years of exhaustion that followed Waterloo, the “ culls ” that were leit in Little England when the strong, the daring, the hot-blooded and the hardy swarmed east and west and south to wherever the world was wide. They stayed at borne to prate of vain imaginings and to tell their over-sea brethren not to make trouble and not to worry them, and not to interfere with the ledger-balance. Until a generation arose that was born of rested men, and in which the red English blood stirred again at the tales of adventurous uncles and the greetings of sun-browned cousins. And they began to know that blood is thicker than water, and that while they had toasted their toes by the sea-coal fires the world had been studded with Britons, and made safe lor all British men.

Then and not, till then the Home Government lifted the old flag with a new significance. They gave it the meaning for which the exiles had suffer ed and toiled, for which colonials had murmured and rebelled, for which rough and selfish adventurers had given life and fortune with joyful hearts. It became the symbol of unity and loyalty, showing that the British stood to the British all the world round. It betokened at last that we were indeed a nation,' that wherever the flag floated the nun oi Devon and of York, of Garrick and of Aberdeen, were in, their

own land, that the Canadian and the Australian, and the men of Natal and of New Zealand were sworn to defend each other, and to set above all local sell-seeking the common freedom and

the common race and the common nationality. This and naught else is the meaning of the flag, surely a meaning which we should instil with their mother’s milk into our babies’ thoughts, so that in the days of stress ami storm winei! come >o all peoples, the) may pour their blood like wafer to keep our world-wide Britain safe and

free. T , , This is militarism, of course. But are wc to Me annihilated befoie we learn that if those who take the sword perish by the sword the children of the strong swordsmen alone to the future. Only as a great militant people can we hope to bo safe in this fierce and fighting world, and the first requirement of true militancy is that we should know where and for what we will fight, and that great masses should be organised to feel, to more, and to act as one man. that buttering piece of bunting, " only a flag, keeps constantly in our thoughts where •mo fnr wli&t we will fight. Ihe de votion that surrounds the flag is to be adjudged good or bad according as it makes for good or makes for cvih And this British national sent mi,ml oi our., is absolutely good, since, without it our race would dissolve into a \anety of petty and divided nationalities, doomed ’ to be overwhelmed in detail by more united and more harmonious peoples. No longer arc tlie over-sea English, as stepchildren, grudged the sympathy that poured out from England tv every foreigner. We sit at the table oi {he wide that are'eovo:C„ rum secured by our Union flag.

Does it mean nothing that our New Zealand lads should learn to what they owe it that our little hamliul of settlers occupies in peace and freedom the most fruitful islands of this alien ocean ? Maul down that Union Jack, with ail it means, with all the added meaning of the Stars and Stripes, and how long should we hold unmolested the riches of the Long White Cloud ? Forty millions of Japanese, four hundred millions of Chinese, a hundred million Russians, and as many Malays and Indo-Chinese, border the ocean on which we fondly hope to build a sea-dominion. How did the Boer treat Englishmen, and what mercy did he show when he had crossed the frontier to force the corrupt rule of Pretoria upon free-born British citizens ? And the Boer is a gentleman as compared to the Russian and an angel of light as compared to the volatile little Jap. Imagine us with a Boxer invasion on our hands, and none but ourselves to resist it ! Imagine the Japs attacking Auckland as they attacked Port Arthur, and

then sii down and figure out whether it is worth while to do our part in teaching the schoolboys of the Empire to give'their lives, if nerd be, in order to uphold and maintain the sanctity oi the flag..