THE GREAT FIGHT FOR LIBERTY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 185, 23 June 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GREAT FIGHT FOR LIBERTY.

YIEWS OF GEX. SIR SAM HUGHES CANADA'S WAR MINISTER. By HAROLD BEGBIE. We began speaking about Sir William Van Home. Sir Ram Hughes, who at one moment looks like a Roman Emperor and at the next l'ke a Shakespearian actor,'said, "Van Home was the biggest man Canada has produced." He has a large, clean-shaven face, with white hair, very black eyebrows, and dark eyes set deep under the forehead. It is a face intended for the utmost good humour, but it has assumed, in the course of a fighting life, rather a grim expression. He tries to look hard, he tries to look rock-like and severe; but the twinkle from within comes into his eyes, and hey, presto! he is as companionable a fellow creature as you could meet. It was picturesque to see this big, deep-chested man leaning back, booted and spurred, in a little pink chair In the sitting-ioom of a London hotel, with his beribboned tunic open and his brown hands shoved into [he top of his breeches. He looked as if he had just ridden In from the fields of romance. I spoke about Van Home's curious interest in Old Testament history. " Yes, but I' o didn't carry mil h religion." said the General. "Anyway, he wasn't sanctimonius." "It was a part of his interest in old things." "' "He'd give a thousand pounds for some old China vase that, wouldn't have got a cent from me." said the General. "I know- that!" "Lord Strathcona showed me." I said, "his Japanese room In Montreal. The old man's strained interest struck me as rather pathetic." The General smiled. "And the smooth, oily way those selling fellows have when they come around with some swindling not or jar (probably made in Staffordshire last week) that they've got to work off on somebody. They lie like a gentleman! I must say they don't interest me. I remember a fellow coming along, straight from Jerusalem, with a tooth of Christ, for sale, r think he had a thousand of them in his nockel. and other relics beside* I hope I'm not wanting in reverence, but I didn't buy. Old tilings don't interest, me." HI".MAX LIBERTY. "What is your main enthusiasm?" I asked. He gave me r> sharp look, am* replied. "To lick the Germans." "Yes. but I mean ..." "That's the biggest thing ill the world, and the only thing In the world. To liek tho. Germans." "But before the war came what was your chief interest in life?" "Human Liberty." And from that moment lie spoke with a freedom and energy and. as 1 think, with a sound understanding, which was extremely inspiring. "What is the object in this war? Hitman .Liberty. That, and nothing else. Human Liberty is the greatest thing in life, and it's for that we are fighting Personally 1 would not give a Continental for a war the object of which was territory. Nothing could be more wicked and stupid and horrible. Bui the light for Human Liberty, why, that's the biggest thing in the world: it's the one fighting appeal which no real man can resfst. And all this stirring up of racial hatred is the biggest mistake in the world. Men don't fight for hate. They fight for what thev love, they fight for their life. Why I've proved it over and over again. "The Teutonic people are a great people. They've always been for freedom of thought. It's only in he last aO years that Prussianism, which Is a filthy disease,, has got hold of them. They'll throw it off. 1 am sure they will. And in the meantime there arc millions all over the world who are praying that Prussian tyranny will be defeated in this war. "People make a fuss about the Germans in the Tinted State*. But what have they done? Every dirty trick over there has been paid for. Have you noticed that? In their hearts the best of them, the greatest number of then arc as anxious as we are for a victory over Prussianism. But. my stars, we've got to bag that German navy first! We've got to liek the German .armies, so (hat this ihing can't come on again. Yes. sir. the safety of tb world lianas en that." The line of his mouth was like iron. A BRIGADE IN A FORTNIGHT. "No; we've got to blow the bugle of Human Liberty. Look how It rings into the souls of men wherever freedom is 1 .ved! We've raised WO.HOO men in Canada, and we can raise as many more. The other day we raised in Nova Scotia alone, a gallant little province like that, a whole Highland Brigade in a fortnight! Think of it. And these men who speak the Gat lie. are the finest fighters in the woild. serious, dour men. and every one of them is willing to leave his bones in Flanders. Whai for? For liun.au Liberty. Oh, I tell you the spirit out there is fin'' - it's fine. There is a freshness about it. and a greatness, and something of a beauty, too. It's (he most inspiring thine in my lift*. I always knew Ganat'a coul 1 do it. But the doinu oi i: the actual thing, done before vour evi~ well, it's magnificent. I sa'id that ! supposed all ! ion withdrawn from civil life incur,; a serious loss for Canadian Lade. Go n plied ompi fttically, "Nel a bit. There are i noiigli met) loaliug around over there, just as ilure are here in London, to do al! the w<o ' of those gone fighting. The man v ho always did ge : up at crow rise hagone to the v.ar. I ef the fellows who never slir out of bed Lii tin sun is over ihe hoiizon ret up an hour or iwo ( arli r and lake L place. You've go) thousands km ■ We've got |leniy where I cotv.e from. Don't bother ahou ikr venue r ma! e

the men do it; there's plenty of then: —oh, yes. I'm dead sure about that ■—here and over there with us." f asked him what he thought o! the .-piri' i« Great Britain.

•'Well." !*.e io;ilii ;1. "I'm glad to toe that the responsible trade union officials took the right line. It would have been awful if the} hadn't. As an outsider it *eems to me you have been running a risk of dividing up jour classes. Sectionalism is all wrong. A nation is a nation. To le' a Labour union or a capitalist get hold of a great country is prettv near the end of the country, A nation must have cohesion in all its parts. It doesn't do to educate a particular class in it* own traditions and interests. You have got to make the whole people feel itself one. And. if the call of Human Liberty won't hold a nation together, then you can dig its grave. The danger of a ll democracies is just that, the loss c! the sense of unity. And you've got to be mighty firm when it gets to treason and mutiny among the party in the hour or crisis. Bat your fcl- - over here are rinp. I've just been talking to two British officer? —well, they were, great follows, great fellows. Oh, yes, you're all right." I asked him what had led him in the first instance to believe in Imperialism. "Well," he replied, with a smile, "that takes me back a con side rubble distance. It takes me back to a schoolroom right away in a little Canadian town. I was .a tear-he; there, and my age wa.s IG. 1 icmember one evening looking at a. map of the world which hung on. the wa)' 4 England was painted red, I remeniuer, Scotland a kind of oiange (something like the cover' el that book over there), Ireland wafgreen, and Wales was some other col- - I forget what. As for Canada, theie was just a pale green line to show where we touched the United States, and all the rest was ief white and lonely. I looked at that map, and it came into my head that if all the parts were linked up they'd make a mighty line show. So I got a paint box. 1 sot to work there and then, and that night the whole ol the British Empire was coloured a. uniform red!"

He laughed over this memory foi a moment, and then growing serious again said to me. "1 always believed by instinct. f suppose, that oceans link tin and don't separate. To live on one sid of a bit of writer never seemed to me any kind m olisiacic If. relations with someone who lived on the other. And I always had faith in unity and cohesion. I always had faith, too in Humanity, l never doubted that the call of Human Liberty would not only unite people r ? the same blood and speech, but a.' the best, people of the nations of the world. It's a manor of time. That'.; all. There's nothing in the world which can make an end of war and hate and wretchedness except the love of liberty—and that love is born in the heart of all men. It's a part of human nature." A WAR TO A FINISH.

Then be. said, with great energ). "But we believe in action. We've had enough of word-. Don't let ai;> man in ibis country, or among anv of our Allies, imagine for or.e moment that our boys have laid down their lives in France for a patched-uu peace. \ 0 ; this is a war to a finish. Prussianism has got to be strangle 1 to death. Human Libert} must never be exposed to such an unholy rish again.

"The Cerman X.uy must be bar,ged. The military caste of Prussia must be beaten to a very email dust. And nor tin then must we think that our fine words are anything. Do you remember what the Irishman says in Henry V.?' The Welshmen is all for words—talk, talk, talk. Pn'„ the Irishman asks to U just where" the work is belnsr done and th< throats are hung out. And that's our feeling In Canada. Xo words but action. We want to get this throateutting over. Prussianism's throar hr.s got fo lie slit, and (lie sooner i;\ Cor.p the better lor all of us, at. A iV" better for Germany, too.' It is interesting to know that this powerful man so busy with affair . is wrapped ut) in his.fmril;. Then are many people in Canada who ear, bear witness ro tiif fact that he knev, by instinct when the severe in which the Canadians lost so hcav ily was taking pla r e. "Sly son w&k there. - ' Ik <a\-?.. • p< •. ha; s thai explains it."