The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, November 3, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1319, 3 November 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, November 3, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

There are men in out midst — thank heaven, very tew —who do not, or mentally cannot, see why the Empire is out to crush the Prussian iuvader who seeks to trample over every free Slate with the object of Prussianising the whole world. We heard one man say that we would be just as well off in New Zealand under German rule as British. Would we ? The man who said that is of the tribe who would cheer the red flag of revolution floating over Parliament buildings. A spasm of German rule would send these same benighted individuals cringing back to the shelter of that emblem which now gives them peace, freedom, and liberty, which they fail to appreciate. True, we have stained one or two pages of history, but our systems in peace and war are far above the German ideal. One writer truly says: “As the Germans have done in Belgium they would do in England, in New Zealand, in Australia, if they could. Unthinkable, of course, but as true as that the sun will rise to-morrow. Occasional Germans, perhaps many Germans, did not like their national methods, but the overwhelming majority must have been satisfied with the system, or these abominations could not have taken place, could not have been repeated and continued until even Germany shrank from a world-wide condemnation she could not understand. Cities would burn and murdered men strew our streets if German invaders thought that this would daunt our resistance and serve the Kaiser’s ends. No motives ol humanity would check them, no sense of national honour control them, no pity lor the weak and helpless stay their hands, any more than it would check and control Germans who have lived as friends among us from guiding and aiding an enemy that reached our gates. All this to the German way ot thinking, is War, is the road to Power, is the means of inheriting the earth. And the price, of Peace, the bitter price ol Peace, is that we should give gold and blood, should suffer and endure until German militarism is broken in pieces, and Peace, true Peace, comes to civilisation at last.” It Is regrettable that some British subjects can make such statements and feeling as they do they should lose no time in seeking a country which is in keeping with their standard of intelligence,

Very appropriate are the words, of Tobunga, which appear iu Saturday’s Auckland Herald, in view ot the local appeal which is being made for the suffering Belgian people. He concludes a stirring article on the price of peace as follows:—" Belgium has paid the bitterest price for us. has been crushed and stricken, outraged and wronged, because she would not give this German militarism, this monstrous and organised iniquity, free passage through her country to reach unprepared France, whereby in later years the same German horde might have reached England, reached New Zealand, trodden down every free state in the world. She won us time, poor Belgium ; she stood in the path and fought the giant with her pigmy strength enhaloed by her devotion. For this all horrors fell upon her, hunger and destitution and homelessness have visited her, a million of her people are refugees, and millions more wait in darkness till the light comes. As she is, New Zealand might be had Belgian Been less heroic, Our allied forces fight for Peace and must pay the price of it. A part of the price, surely, is that we should help to share the bitter burden of our Belgium brethren, to feed their hunger, to clothe their nakedness, and to shelter them until our fighting men buy lasting Peace with avenging swords.”