Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY JULY 5th 1920. THE HOUR OF GRAVEST DANGER

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY JULY sth 1920. THE HOUR OF GRAVEST DANGER

We are leaving the war period behind and the old sense of national security is creeping into our livos again. Wo are apt to forget thoso fateful days which followed the declaration of war in August, 1914. We know, of course that we came through alright, that kind Providence once again tended the brave and the devoted, and the dogged spirit of old, pulled the nation through. But it is useful to reflect on the immediate past, not for pleasure, but for profit, so that we jnny apply the lessons we should have laid to heart in those dark days of doubt and difficulty. However tricky our memories might he over the period of tension when so much hung in tlie balance, history has recorded the sequence of events in such a way that the drifting minds may turn to any library shelf now and then find volumes which will refresh the memory, and invigorate the mind with the record of those wonderful deeds done on the spur of the moment when the nation’s leaders awoke to the fact that the Empire had entered the arena to fight for its life. Such a volume, for instance, as ‘.“Kitchener of Khartoum’ ’, is a r.eminUer par excellence of what the war meant to Great Britain, for he was the one man who from the very outset realised the task ahead and had The initiative to prepare to overcome it. Wlion war was declared there was work for Kitchener to do which was to crown the military career of a wonderful soldier of the Empire. "hole life was breathed in the atmosphere of soldiering. It appeared as though Providence had set this life apart as one specially to guide the nation in tnc hour of .greatest and gravest danger. His military career had steeped him in the ways of war, and Ids record had shown how he could handle difficult problems calling for resource rather than bravery, for organisation rather than material fighting. His career was wildly fantastic and romantic, and when the people came to realise Ins worth in the Soudan and in African' campaigns, and later in the Indian command, there was a halo settled about him which made Idm the nation’s hero the nation’s trusted leader. When war broke out. it was quite natural therefore that Lord Kitchener should be sent for and put in the highest position to control the nation’s part in the war. To do so he had to enter the Ministry of the day, but lie made :t clear that he was not there for political renown nor for the matter of that, for military glory. He was to do liis country the greatest service ho could. Ho he liecapie Secretary of State for War, and his biographer has pronounced that occasion to be “tlie hour of the gravest- danger which has ever threatened the Empire.” The biography of such a man is a record of history indeed, and let us quote what the historian says of Kitchener of Khar toilin' and Ids task at the greatest moment of his life —when lio took up that task to save his country and bring relief ultimately to all the world: “The task was herculean, and Kitchener was clearly the one man to undertake it. His name was a household word for military efficiency and organising skill. His austere aloofness had endowed him with something of the quality of the o-ld demigods in the eyes of the man-in-thc-street. The public had complete, unquestioning faith 'll him; lie had but to ask and it would be given. Kitchener knew that Ids demands would be heavy; he did not share the easy optimism of those early days, and lie warned the nation against it. His first words on entering the War Office are burned into the memories of all "ho heard them. “There

is mi army,” lip fluid. It litw* 1 all true, for he mount that in the ti- ( i tunic struggle in which Britain was 1 engaged tlie men under arms—regulars, I reserves, and territorials—were numerically a mere nothing, a corporal s guard in comparison with the mighty ( hosts of tlie enemy. The question as lie saw it, whether our troops advanced retired, or hold their .ground, was not one of merely reinforcing tlie expeditionary force, bqt of creating a real j army, which should pit itself in tlie j future against the forces of the Gernuiu Empire. Hb 'immediately laid his plans for an army of seventy divisions, calculationg that its maximum I strength would bo reached during the I third year of the war, just when the I enemy would be undergoing a sensible I diminution of his resources. “If,” ob- ] serves the historian, "it was to his undying fame that lie created the armies I to carry out Tils vast purpose it was not I less to his credit that he was tlie one statesman who perseived, or at least had the courage to declare, that England must strip herself to fight to the death.” In these days of of comparative peace and practical security, it is as well to recall the past “lest we for ' get.” We owe it to all who sacrificed ! in the great war, for the national security and to discharge "that debt ' we I should try and rebuild more faithfully ! to tlie common needs, bearing in mind ■ that all made great sacrifices, and in i the new plans of life provision, should 1 be made for the comfort and security “! of all. The great war should have j brought a new vision of life, and seeing ' our duty we should follow it.

In ilie course of Ins speech supporting the no confidence motion, the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald naturally referred to the land question. In the form of providing land for the landless this is the great question of the day, and Mr Macdonald’s idea is to classify the land held, and from those holding an excess of area appropriate land for settlement, first for the returned soldiers requiring land, and second for the population at large desirous of settling on the land. Undoubtedly the more people who can be placed on the land, the better it will be for the internal life of the country. A settled population will in every sense be for the betterment of living conditions while from a productive and wealth producing point of view, more and more settlement is the royal, way to that desirable national result. What Mr MacDonald said was another aspect of Mr Hockley’s idea of placing the land question on a soluble basis. Indeed, Mr Hockley went further, for he averred that no man should hold more land than he used, and no man who desired to use land should be denied it. There are difficulties Tn working out to these conditions perhaps. Certainly they are more radical than Mr MacDonald’s ideas ; but the two proposals considered: jointly, point the way to a genuine reform whereby tile land question can be brought up to date, and dealt with in a manner possible of curing some of the chief ills we ns a country are suffering from to-day. It is Mery doubtful if the Government will take up the question on the radical lines which have been proposed, and to assist in concentrating attention on the matter, the leader uf the Liberals could not do better than p'Ut his ideals for a constructive policy for the betterment of the people as a. wTiolc, and this at the same time would he in keeping with Mr MacDonald’s intention of not unduly harrassing the Government with factious opposition. It would be bitting out on a new line of constructive instead of destructive criticism and would lie more in keeping with the spirit of times in regard to polities.