Hokitika Guardian and Evening Star THURSDAY. JAN. 4 1917 BRITAIN’S SHARE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian and Evening Star THURSDAY. JAN. 4 1917 BRITAIN’S SHARE

That Britain has the will to conquer in this great war is evidenced by a recent Frenoh tribute uttered by M. PicboD, formerly French Minister of Foreign Affairs. He envisages without prejudice or illusion the military situation, estimated the probable duration of the war, foresaw that it would evolve slowly at the cost of enormous sacrifices, and that it would be only in 1917, in the Spring, or more probably the Sommer, that it would approach a conclusion. Probably it is the realisation of these possibilities which prompted the enemy peace proposals. The first stage in the great plan for victory was referred to : For its undertaking it was neeessary to have such effectives, guns, engines of war and munitions that the resistance of the German troops and the strategy of the Prussian General Staff would be powerless against them ; that was the task to which Great Britain particularly applied herself, and it is specially from this point of view that she has the right to claim a capital share in the decisive work that is being accomplished. Everything has been said that could ho said about the services rendered by the British Government and people to the cause of liberty and civilisation which they are defending against German barbarism. I have bad occasion, as far as I myself am concerned, to declare repeatedly in a hundred artioles, speeches, and lectures, what humanity owes t£> the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and colonies for the results achieved on land and sea for more than two years against the most

ignoble enemy the world has ever known. Save for England's intervention, the German enterprise would have succeeded ; the email States would have disappeared politically from the map or Europe ; some of them would have disappeared even geographically. France and Russia would have not been able to maintain successfully an unequal struggle against a military Power

formidably wsaponad and equipped, organised during the course of a halfcentury for this very war, and shrink;.-, ing from no atrocity in order to realise its designs of death and destruction, All this is contested by nobody, and 1 in a general sense one may say that the evidence “ leaps to the eje.” This, then, is the most striking illustration of Britain’s power; it is her decisive contribution to the inavitabla conclusion of the war. Great Britain has succeeded in forming an Army, drawn from the Mother Country and the Dominions and Colonies; she has equipped and framed it, given it a modern organisation, provided it with artillary, end given it a lavish supply of every arm and every kind of munition —a wealth of war material that is a guarantee of ita triumph. All this she has done in less than two years. How much time we wasted, England and alas ! France too, after the thunderbolt of 1914, before we knew vj?at ooght to b$ done, *»<]»

when we did at length know, beforß we made up our minds to do it! Ah, if Germany had but realised, as Mr Lloyd George said last August in the House of Commons—had she only known our apathy and distress! For tunately eho acted as if she was unaware of the true state of affairs. And to day the evil has been cured. Great Britain’s arsenals and factories, those of France and of our Allies, and those of the countries wi’h whioh the British Fleet has kept open our communications, ard furnishing us with everything th&t is required for victory. 'Henceforth we can defy tbs arsenals and factories of Germany. As for our armies, they are worthy of one another. They are equal, in courage, determination, and heroism. No nonsnocess can depress their spirit; their will to win is unshakable, Enthusiasm is theirs ; they burl themselves eagerly upon the enemy, - who can neither hold gronnd nor compute the number of their dead and the prisoners left in our hands ! Surely, it all speaks for itself; yet it is but the commencement. Such is Great Britain’s share in the Great War. If you in London gladly proclaim the military virtues of France and the new glory she has won, no less do we in Paris hail the example of the allied and friendly nation, which by a phenomenon unique in the world’s history, has succeeded in raising herself in a few short months to a height of organisation, strength and energy from whioh she now dominates that Power whose national trade was war and whioh had given centuries to making heraelf certain of her invincibility.