THE REALITY OF OUR TASK.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1917, Page 4

THE REALITY OF OUR TASK.

By One Who Knows

(Loudon Daily Mail)

To win outright against Germany, to impose anything like our terms on bar, and so secure a lasting peace have tbe great majority or even the bare majority of our people, rich and p','o'% thinker and thou. hiless, pessimist and “optimist,” realised wbat that truly means ? Ido not believe they have.

Nearly everything one sees in London goes to show they have not, and nearly every thing one sees io thi country likewise. They do not realise that the task is even half as mighty as it will prove to be. Tnis belief is not new to me. It has been at the back of my mind more or less dating the last two and a half years, because I can recall the war of 1870, and because tbe military preparation and the whole organisation of Prussia have been impressed on me from very early youth. Often this fact that people do not realise the mightiness of the task oppresses me on reading debates on cotton and other suoh trifles —they are toys of children compared with the gigantic life-aud-death grapple just across the water —and on observing the ordinary, easy-going life and talk of so many people at home, Germany intends tq, aud will, wear us down to tbe bone,before she suffers us to break her; aud there are great masses of rich, of fairly prosperous t and of poor people here who as yet have not experienced an abrasion of the skin.

v There is no pleasure in saying this, there is reluctance and distaste in saying it; but it is bed-rock truth. OUR OVERWHELMING PART

I am no pessimist, and hate dismal croaking, 1 have twice within the last six mouths visited the fightiDg fronts of both the great Armies in France, and have orce visited the base of one of these armies and admired the wonderful dock-work organisation there. 1 have been over the Somme and north of the Somme with the British, and at Verdun and three of its forts have seen the work of the French ; in the Argonne, too, and at Champagne, almost on the identical ground nearßipont where French and German are to-day at terrible grips. Nobody can be with these armies, full as they are of inexhaustible spirits and good-humored heroism, and cotnejhome anything but optimistic ; by optimistio I mean one must come home saying to oneself something like this s “Tbe task set the British and Frenoh Armies is the most tremendous that oau be conceived. 'They have the mightiest, naoit resolute and relentless foe, well aimed, well manned, well machined in all respects down to a detail. Yet , . . they can do it, but only do it by the people of both countries making sacrifices at least comparable to the sacrifices in the i reaches aud on no man’s ground. Otherwise, of coarse, it cannot possibly be done.” I think this much nearar the spirit of true optimism than pretending that Germany is starving and will soon be beaten. Optimism faces facts and through courage rises supreme over misfortane and difficulty.

Moreover, having lately seen the French Army at work I am simply forced to ihia coDolnsion ; it rests wi;h Great Britain henceforth to take the overwhelming part. The French Army is saperb. Its latest retort to the German at Maisona de Champagne is amazing, though perhaps after spending a day or two there with the youog French officers, those bright spirits who have never a moment’s doubt of “doing in ” the Boche all right, as they will tell you if you ask, for they seem to speak English better than many of; them spoke it 00 easily that I was deceived, and asked how he came to be a French officer, and he answered, “ Jnsfc in the ordinary way, you know.” I had thought him English. The French are ardent, irrepressible ; but they are not super-human.

Beoall their works and losses in the first year and a half of war. Observe the length of their line. Study their figures. And then you will see at once that Great Britain must do it.

Do not gamble on tbe endless man power of Russia, on China, America, or on starving Germany and Austria (neither is starving, and Austria-was f:\r better organised than was supposed here) ; or on the fail of the murk (other marks than Germany's are falling badly.); and do not gamble on revolution in Germany—ihore ia nofc the ghost of a chance of it, unless the War Scuff gives in to the Allies before tin Germ m Army is broken and cedes German soil. POOL OP MANY THINGS. To gamble on any of the above ofcances only means tbe loss of reasoning power. Gre»t Britain h.'B with France enpertly at bay—to break the German lino and the Gorman heart that is behind that tremendous lino. And the only way it can be by any human possibility be dGne is by stern and wholesale sacrifices at home in order to furnish our great Aimy and its matchless leader with the stuff, with tbe fighting men and munitions and food and labour.

It may even be that.we shall have to pool resources at home ia order to do it —to pool and ti- suiLr tbe State to dole out to us in fitting or e~eu eqn.-l portions. I .ita nor. sure we ehali not h*ve to pool many things—the necessaries and comforts of life, and alio tbe labonr. How this grim truth taken hold of people here so far ? I thiak notFanny little wrangles about cot ton> about Home Rule, about party'' or-' ganieationa, and eo on, seem to show—quite as clearly as Giro’s dances show

—-that many people has never evsn dreamt it as a nightmare. Bat then they de uot know the strength of ths enemy. They have not seen hiß extraordinary defensive fortresses at tbe front or grasped the truth that he has millions of men on the western front to-day. They do not imagine the long drawn oat r6B'Stance he will make when tbe British Army b&s shifted him across the border into Belgium, and slowly and with untold courage got bitr-—the French at it with a*, nil the way-out of the coal and irou districts.of France. There is nothing like a full understanding of the ordeal we must go through before and L.rraiuo, Poland, Belgium, Fiance. Rumania, and Serbia are taken away from Germany ; before the is broken apart from Austria, and brought generally, a blinded, mad giant, to her knees. The longer we fail to understand it the greater tha ordeal will prove. At our present rate of understanding it will take years to get aud keep tbs hateful powei of Germany o‘i ai under. Sir J. MadcleM, K.C.M.Ci. etc., Lieutenant-Governor and Chief Justiceof Victoria, when delivering judgment in a caso in which an inferior substitute had been pushed as “ just as good ” as SANDER’S EUCALYPTI EXTRACT, said :—“ Whenever an artice is commended to tbe public by reason of its good quality it is not pen. missable to imitate any of its features, and he prohibited the oftendmg party . from further substitution. When using a medicine it is “ good quality ” that you want, and SANDER’S EXTRACT has the endorsement aud approval of the highest authorities. Inhaled, applied locally, taken on sugar or in water as directed, SANDER’S EXTRACT is equally beneficial, because it is specially refined and prepared by Sander’s process and contains no harmful by-products, Use SANDEB’S EXTRACT only when you desire good and lasting effects; no “ just as good.”