Rev. R. J. Campbell on Our New Year Outlook.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 161, 31 March 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

Rev. R. J. Campbell on Our New Year Outlook.

g THE WAR'S GREATEST | BLUNDER AND HOW IT WAS MADE.

Someone closely related to me once said that he found it impossible to view the approach of a new year without some measure of misginving. Tne customary exchange of friendly greetings at this season caused him a certain amount of uneonfessed perturbation. He never could hear the words, "A Happy New Year,'-' without something akin to a shiver of dread. He could not help wondering what the new year had in store for the speaker and tlioe he addressed, and whether .t might not contain more sorrow than joy, be big with unforeseen catastrophe. You may call this morbid, and so perhaps it was, though the person I have in mind was not of morbid temperament. But there was a good deal V; justify his attitude. Again and again he had noticed how friends of his, full of cheery anticipation at the beginning of a new year, had been visited by tragedy before the end of it, how those well and strong bed uttered the ancient good wish to the weak and sickly and themselves been cut down by the hand of death within a few weeks or months, leaving the objects of their solicitude to mourn their loss in utter desolation. It was because of things ijke these, lie said, that he rather shrank from giving or receiving the conventional salutation, "A Happy New Year." Many people will sympathise with him this year who would not have done so before. We cannot look forward light-heartedly r.fter such a year of suffocating horror as that which has just closed. A year which has witnessed the Lusitania jnfamv and the massacre and rape of a million helpless Armenians, to speak of nothing else, will stand out in the annals of our time as one of peculiar darkness and brutal depravity. That theatrical potentate, the Kaiser, who, with the Junker caste, deliberately made the war to save his dynasty and their order from being overwhelmed by the advancing forces of German democracy, has been issuing directions to h's public for a sober observance of the seasan. There are to be 110 festivities, no gaieties within Berlin Court circles or elsewhere that its influence extends. The War Lord thinks it unfitting that, at a time when the Fatherland in particular and civil-

isation in general are enduring such unspeakable ca'amities there should be any attempt at merry-making—or. presumably, New Year greeting on the old lines, unless " Gott strafe England" can be considered such. He is full of pious exhortations and apostropnes as usual, but what about those slaughtered Armenians? They seem to lie lightly on the Hohenzollern conscience. But God is not mocked, and there will be a reckoning. Does he see it coming, I wonder? We on our part have now settled down to the war in grim earnest and there is not much optimism about. Any fancies wo ever had as to a speedy termination of this bloody are over and done with I should think Wo know now what we are up against, though it has taken a long time to bring it home to us, and we are beginning to have a truer conception of what it is going to cost us. The war, the war, the war—we can think of little else, and we enter upon this New Year with less buoyancy, perliops, but more determination iliar. last; less vapouring about tiie inevitable end, and so forth, but with a, quieter, sterner, more thorough grasp of the whole situation and our wills set to see it through. That is all we can say; we dare not mortgage the iuture any more. Instead of wishing each other a Happy New Year —there is 110 harm in that, to be sure, but to many tiiousands of bereaved and sorrowing ones it would seem sadly out of place -w c shad wish, and doggedly wish, and work, and sacrifice, and fight till our cruel foe is broken and the world is once more free to betake itself to happy laughter and song. The Germans 1 now this as well as we, hence their frenzied hatred of us. Careful neutral observers tell us that their new hate, wnich we might call the I'.'lU brand, is born of fear, the fear which has now replaced the old contempt. They have learned by now that tliey misunderstood . s under-esti-mated us. saw us :'i a false light. No wonder they did, howeu-r —we gave them every opportunity. Truly we are a curious folk, or ratner, most of my readers are. for not being an AngloSaxon myself, I am sometimes as puzzled by your temperament as the iore Vner. t-l :w, deficient in imagination, un_ disciplined, often muddle-headed, fumbling and blundering his way along, somehow the Englishman always gets thew» in the end. It is his tenacity t Fie enemy fears now. lie finds it is there still just as ii was a thousand years ago. John '.nil will never give in. The worse things look, tlie more he will grip hold and keep hold till victory is secured.

"Is it possible that we may refuse to treat with the Hohenzollerns at all Will Germany have to fin* another mouthpiece than that theatrical potentate, the Kaiser? It [would be a wonderful result of the Avar if this should happen, i "If Germany could be made a :Republic there would be no more dear of the violation of treaties and •the menace of militarism." • (From th 0 'lllustrated Sunday ; Herald.')

In the process he will curse his own leaders and everybody else, high and low, as no German would ever dream of Going. He will wash his dirty linen in public with utter obliviousness of the consequences on the public mind of other nations, friendly or unfriendly. H 0 does not c;ire what anybody thinks of him; it would be hotter if lie did. For a long time Germans believed that when Englishmen angrily criticised those who had the direction of the war, so far as our part in it is concerned, they must bo panic-stricken and almost at the point of revolution. They know better now.

They know that that bull-dog grasp c:it their throat is not coining

off till t!;o menace of the mailed fist is to: ever destroyed.

Perhaps not all Germans know it even yet, but the knowledge i« spreading rapidly, and it will not be possible much longer for official lies to hide it from the mass of the people. And then what will happen? I don't know—nobody knows. But there are several things that may happen. Is t possible that we may refuse to treat with the Hohenzollerns at all? Will Germany have to find another mouthpiece? Will the gagged and silent multitude find its tongue? Will our arms set Germany herself free?

It would lie a wonderful result of the war if this should happen. It would ba a war of liberation indeed far beyond the scope of any statesman's forecast when it began. And why not? As I have just said, there is small doubt that one great reason why the Kaiser and the privileged orders wished for war and provoked it was because they foresaw that within the next ten years

social democracy in the Reichstag ami in the empire at large would be strong enough to dispossess them and seize the r< ins of power. Like Napoieon the Third forty years ago, tluy saw that the only way to avert thus was to wage a successful war. And in this they calculated rightly. If Germany were to w.n in the present contest the yoke of militarism, with all its anti-popular, anti-liberty accompaniments would he riveted l upon the necks of the German people more firmly than ever. But they thought England would keep out of it, or would be able to do little if she came in. And there they calculated wrongly. It is the cause of freedom and justice as opposed to privilege and brutal tyranny that rests r.ll our arms to-day. A democratic Germany would 1 not be a Germany to be dreaded by her neighbours albeit a happier and more prosperous Germany than that which entered upon this confl.ct a year and a half ago. li' Germany could be made a KejMiblio there would be no more tear < I' the violation of treaties and the men.ue ct' militarism. That is our way en' c m ape from a renewal of tfiis wicked strife. (Jet rid of these military monarchies and you get rid of war. Democracies are never aggressive, history notwithstanding. They were 110 true democracies that made the wars of old. A Germany with the spirit of the United States, not to speak of 0 r own vhich is a democracy under monarchial forms, would be a Germany at peace with ah the world. NO BITTERNESS WOULD SURVIVE. With such a Germany we could and would' form a pact of comradeship at once at the conclusion of the war There would be 110 reason why wo should do otherwise, and I believe no bitterness would survive between the two nations as it is almost certain to do if Kaiserism and the military caste are left in the dominating po-itiou they now hold. This is one great tiling to hope for as an outcome of the present terrible upheaval, a republican Germany, or Germany and Austria, a United Mates of Middle Europe. In time we should' all become members of such a Federation; and, even if not, we could almost afford to beat our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Give us democratic control in the monarchically ruled nations of the world and there will be 1:0 1110;e wars. This would be a thing worth fighting for. and 1 probably it is what Europe :s fighting for without knowing it. But w.e have got to win. and there must bo no slackening of the pace until we -.10 win. If Germany wins, the cause of humanity is lost for generations to come. T was going to sav the cause of free institution.; would be lost, the cause which assumes in everv man a certain sovereignty, a certain value to the

THE ER'S FUTUREWILL GERM&KY BECOME A REPUBLIC?

: whole as a responsible, self-directing : unit. But it is something much more : serious than that. That, taken by it- ; self, has happened before. The Roman empire—born of a Re- : pubile, by the way—crushed political ; freedom, interest, and initiative while : allowing the largest scope in other : ways to the nations under its sway. ; And it is at least an arguable proposi- : tion that this was a benefit to mankind : ;n the long run, for the energy thus ; refused a political outlet ran into other - channels and enriched' the spiritual output of the world. But that would not be so now. Germany's conception of Kultur forbids it. It is a tyranny over minds as well as bodies. It forces everything into the mould of intellectual efficiency for materialistic ends, and sacrifices all the finer sides of human nature to tin's monster of its own creating. The educational system under which her unfortunate youth are brought up presupposes that man is nothing but a brain and a body; the sou! and its needs it ignores. Civilisation as a whole has suffered not a little from this danger. We have been measuring all our good in material symbols, making a fetish of progress, talking and acting as though we had no goal of endeavour but that which is bounded by the senses. THE STAKE OF THE FALLEN. Would to God that the world were poor, anc. simple, and clean. When we speak about the future do we ever stop to analyse what we mean? What would it matter to the mother whose on'y son lies buried in front of the German lines somewhere in France that ages hence a saner, sweeter society should live and grow on that same soil because he shed h's blood there? How will it comfort a grief-stricken wife to be told that her husband was torn in. pieces out yonder in Gallipoi'. that the England of a hundred years hence might :<o a happier, richer, more contended England th vi t! e Er.yhind of yesterday? They would each demvnd to -.now. womanlike, what there was to he as compensation for the men who died to make this future possible, and what in the way of comfort for their own stricken hearts here and now. There is something to be said for the Irishman who objected to working for posterity. " What has posterity done for us?" was his not unnatural inquiry. T say that every man whose hones lie lotting in Fre.ich or Belgian earth to-day that England's future may lie secured must have a place and a stak c in the grand result or the price was not worth paying. I look beneath all this agony and beyond ail that politicians give as the reasons for it, and I see that it is a clash of ideals, a battle of souls that is going on. And in the long run that concerns, not perishable flesh, but immortal spirit. THE WAR'S WORST BLUNDER. We are going to win. Be sure of it. We are hearing much from our friends and our enemies about our appalling mistakes and tho frightful toll they have enacted in human blood and anguish. We have made them beyond doubt, and the story that will one day be to'd about them will lie a terrjble one, amazing in its relation to men we trusted and believed 1 in. This may be so; but not all the, blunders have been on our side. The worst mistake of the whole war was pei pet: ated not by England but by Gei many. In those first few awful weeks, when the German armies were sweeping southward and westward bearing our brave boys before them they had tfie greatest chance they are ever going to hove qf concluding the war speedily in their own favour. And they lost it. Paris was to them like a bunch of carrot's before a donkey's nose. Their higher command was determined they shoulc.' get there at all costs. So on they went in their mad rush, lengthening out their lines of communication, out-stripping their transport, and finally left short of ammunition and in imminent danger of being cut off from their far-distant bases by a flank attack. That was why the sudden retreat took place winch culminated in tlie Battle of the Marne and the protracted trench warfare of the sixteen months taht have followed. But note tnis —If the German higher command had macie sure of the coast first they might, and possibly would, have had Paris at their mercy afterwards, and made our task immeasureably moer difficult. Some of those who ought to know have told me that everything north of the Loire would have been in their hands. What was there to stop them 5 Calais was undefended. Boulogne was actually declared an open town. They had only to walk in and take possession, and thus prevent us coming to the rescue except by a much longer and far more dangerous route. They did not do it, and have lost their chance for ever. Tliey have been fighting for Calais ever since, and will never get it, nor Paris either. Say what you will about the Dardanelles or the Balkans or what not —nothing we have ever done or left undone is comparable in its disastrous consequences to this colossal failure of the much vaunted German militarv machine and its up-to-date scientific methods a* contracted with our rough-and-tumble SOi't. We were not ready. Tliey were. Franco was caught napping. Tliey knew it. And yet they collapsed. The war was lost to Germany ; ti the first three weeks. Let us take comfort. All the fools are not in England. We have nothing in our record' as bad as that. " MI'CH TO SUFFER YET." We have niuch to suffer yet, and perhaps for long too —who knows? There are many more tears to flow and many more hearts to break. God only knows whether we can bear the strain for the full period required for victory Satisfying and comp'ete. But it is more a oeest'on (if neve than resource?. and I cannot imagine England's nerve giving way.

We have a r'ghteous cause and a char issue before us. and these alo"e are assets of the greatest worth. Wc give and our best beloved ir in, l sirif". but we give Until for an

eternity in which every pang turns to power ant.' every borrow is swaHowed up in joy. So with a solemn yet cheerful confidence 1 wish all who read these columns a Happy New Year—in 1917 or may bo later.' —l{. J. CAMPBELL.