IN SPITE OF ALL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1547, 6 May 1916, Page 4

IN SPITE OF ALL.

Mr Robert Blatchford, writing in the Weekly Despatch, professes to see a glimmer of the dawn in. the present military situation. He says : —Our old friend Dismal Jimmy is very English. When the skies were really overcast and the danger loomed very close upon us, when blunder followed blunder and good news was not, our James forebore to growl ; he ceased to prophesy darkly. He shut; up like a Briton and bided his time. But now, if the skies are not already clearing, there is a glimmer of (lie dawn, and ere long the voice of the Jimmy will be heard in our land. For we are going to win. In spite of .all our handicaps and disadvantages, ip spite of our mistakes, onr unreadiness, and our consequent disappointments, we are going to win. We have suffered and endured, we and our Allies. We have paid the price, and the star of the Allies is rising. We were, of all the allied Powers, the least prepared. We have been, the worst, led. We have awakened more slowly. That is because we were most heavily drugged. [lecause Liberalism and Pacificism and class and party schism had been more banefully effectual here than in any other European country. Also, we are a slow-moving people ; not prone to anger, fond of comfort, intolerant of change, and equipped but sparely with political imagination. Perhaps for us the shock of war came just in time. Twenty years hence the drums of Armageddon might have been too late. Also, we are much beholden to our allies. But the Allies will win because of their own qualities ; because they have a tougher resilient tenacity. In the onset the Huns had one great ('him I ?—lhe .chance of the Allies’ unpreparedness. Thajt,chance Ims lapsed. The Allies hi iv« a(; strongest the advantage in wealjh and numbers. The Allies have an intellectual and spiritual superiority over their enemies. The power of the Allies waxes stronger every