MR. HUGHES STIRRING CALL TO BRITAIN

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 238, 29 December 1916, Page 7 (Supplement)

MR. HUGHES STIRRING CALL TO BRITAIN

known aversion to daylight; obscurity is the element in which they find their richest prey. These seekers of pelf and creatures of routine hope and think that when the war has died down all .will be as it was; that Britain will fcrget and forgive, clasp the palm of her would-be murderer, that slie will again be the willing host of a foul parasite, that she will welcome the German trader, absorb greedily the products of those same hands that have despoiled and murdered from Scarborough *o Nish and from the Dvina to the Aisne, and nourish again the cancer that was eating into the very vitals of tha Empire. These people want to return to the "Merrie England' 1 where "all went very well"' before the war.

WHEN THE BOYS COME

HOME—

Shall we comfortably slip back irto our old indolent ways of living?

Shall we lazily fold our arms and let the poor rot in their poverty ?

Is pelf still to be our ambition and profit our goal ?

Shall vre stdl gladly, clasp the hand of the foul murderer in our midst for the sake of German trade?

Shall we still mumble Lord! S Lord! and abase ourselves be- I fore the Golden Calf? > Is THIS what our boys are \ fighting for? \

THE OLD MUST NEVER COME BACK. They ask each other eagerly: — "Is it true that we shall see no more that England of the good old days of peace, the richest country In the world, the tolerant keeper of an Empire of which it knew little or nothing, but which was and is the greatest Empire the world has ever seen; that England in which liberty was the inalienable right of every man, where none were slaves, yet where millions of free-born Britons—men. women and litlte children—lived, God knows how, more than half-starved, clad in filthy rags, with bodies stunted and' souls attuned to the slums in which they existed : -s it really passing o " Are we to see no more of ifcit England in which it was no man's business to take thought for the welfare of his fellow-countrymen or of his country; that England which opented the doors of its citadel to its mortal enemies, welcoming and even honouring them, turning its own citizens adrift the better to make room for them; which bred envy and uncharitableness not only between individuals, but between classes, so that men saw one another not really is they were, but as distorted by the glasses of prejudice, envy and hatred? "Has the death-knell bebn rung of that England which, though it still mu;:bled Lord! Lord! abased itself unashamed before the golden Calf; which made wealth, not worth, the standard by which men were to be measured, the amassing of wealth and the pursuit of plaesure the ends of man? " Are wo, to see no more of that foolish England that, having made wealth its god, took no thought of guarding the temple in which it was, but even made the agents and spies of its great rival and enemy the chief priests of the Tom Die?"

From The Illustrated Sunday Herald

During my visit to Britain I was •frequently asked what I thought of the British people in the great struggle. And always my answer was thit. I thought the spirit in which they were facing th • war was splendid. And that is the verdict of the would, for who can deny in the supreme hour of their trial they have risen nobly?

THE HOCK AND THE MAX.

THE NEW BRITON. Now how does the average Briton of to-day differ from him of pre-war time? The alchemy of testing circumstance has brought about a subtle but palpable change. It has supplied nothing that was not in the British character before; but much disfiguring dross has disappeared in tho orucible, and the relation of the elements has undergone ialteration. It would be hard to define the difference, but it is more than superficial; and it will, I hope, prove permanent, for it is emphatically a difference foi the better. Does his claim to our respect and praise spring from his works? Has he done great things? It is not merely that Briton has done great things. HE HAS DONE WONDERS, but he would he the last to .claim credit for this, for he feels he might have done—nay, he ought to have done—very much more. No, it is less the achievement than the change of spirit that struck me during those months in which I was in contact with British life and thought and 1 activity, superficially, perhaps, but on all sides. The change, then, is not one of achievement. What, then, is it? The change is one of spirit. His outlook on life is radically changed. He is splendid not because of what he has done but for what he is.

NO TEARS FOR THE PAST. And may we not with them ask: Is it really going, never to return? Let u« devoutly hope so. For who amongst all the millions of British men and women, rich and poor, will shed a tear over the England that was? For nearly a century Britain had mhat men call Peace, broken only by distant rumblings of war that hardly reached the ears of the great masses of the people fighting desperately for tho means to live. For more than two years we have had War, and despite its frightful horrors it has brought to all save a negligible few great exaltation of soul and peace of_mind. For mean and selfish things has been substituted the spirit of goodwill and love towards their fellow-men.

THIS is what our boys are fighting for.

FIRST LIGHT OF A BRIGHTER PAY. Ho sees everything, including him self, in a clearer and softer light. And ho is at once humbled and! exalted 1 , contrite and proud. Fir if he is ashamed of his former Harrow views, his neglect of duty to his neighbours and to his country, and pales as he- looks down into the pit dug by himself, which so nearly engulfed hiin, he is uplifted and filled with rapture as he contemplates the Soul of his Country, now clearly visible to him.

A people that were divided amongst themselves have become united. An Empire that seemed little more than a name has become a great living reality. The people of Britain are like men with vision dwarfed nnd stunted by long dwelling in thick fog, upon whom suddenly bursts the full fury of a great hurricane, causing frightful havoc and destruction but sweeping aawy as if by magic the miasmic vapours in which they had lived, enabling them to see each clearly and revealing in all its glorious majesty the towering sunlit peaks of a great mountain which, thought they saw it plainly for the first time, all knew at once to K? their common heritage, their glory and their means of salvation.

And at the sight thereof THE BRITAIN THAT WAS slowly recedes into the mist of the past, aware of its own wnworthiness, and the topmost towers of THE BRITAIN THAT IS TO BE are faintly visible in the first light of the new day. , It is not all Britons, indeed, who Nhave this vision. Some lack faith: others wear the blinkers of self-inter-est. Far from desiring any change, thev dread it.

Certain animals dwelling in dark places lose the faculty of sight altogether; while owls and bats have a

44 1 see the sunlit peaks of NeW % England where Pelf and Profit count for less than half-starved Children. "

\ The hour of fo.tc for the f British Empire produced a \ gjVat Imperial statesman in f Mr. Hughes. i It was Mr. Hughes who inS spired the nation with new < vigour, hope, and determina--1 tiou when victory seemed afar >, off f

In this stirring message to S Britain Mr. Hughes woks to J galvanise all the best elements S in English life into a first-class \ fighting unit to demand a now > and happier Britain when the £ war is over. \

A MIRACLE HAS HAPPENED

This war has revealed to the Briton his country. He sees that he lias duties to other men and to the State. And the revelation has effected a change little short of miraculous, for it is Veritably a change of heart. He who but ,i little while back callously denied, not in words perhaps but in dCeds, that he owed any duty to his neighbour, let alone to the State, now not only freely acknowledges them but finds in their performance the supremest pleasure in life.

Now as some, mdeed most of the tilings to which duty now beckons him involve self-sacriiicc, whereas he had formerly devoted himself to self-ag-grandisement, wo see that the change i.-. fundamental in nature, and when we consider all things a miracle. What is the cause of this great change of spirit? Singly the ennobling influence of a groat idea. As a man thinks, so ho is. The minds of Britons have been lifted from the pursuit of the sordid and base to the worship of the noble and lofty. Men are facing death, are enduring .suffering, are dying daily. But endurance, suffering, and death are no new things. Before the war it is probable, nay it is certain, that there was more real misery, more privation than now, but although these were in their very mMst, few were affected, fewer ennobled by the sad spectacle. Where, then, is the difference? It lies surely in the cause for which men now suffer and die. They died formerly in a mean cause for Profit and for Self. They die now in a noble cause—they die for their Countrv, for Others, for Us!

That is the supreme lesson of Ibis war, the great truth that, once laid hold of and applied, will regenerate not only Britain, but the civilised world. In the purifying, ennobling effect of great ideals lies the hope of Mankind.

WHEN THE SHOUTING DIES DOWN. Patriotism, winch rests mainly tipoii sacrifice of self for the good of the nation, is a great ideal It has re raained for War to invoke it, but Peace need not lay it to rest.

Can we not keep all that is best in it alive when the turmoil and shouting of war dies? Shall not a nation for whom millions of brave men offered their Jives upon the altars of their country, facing death daily for months i:. order that it might be saved nnd free, in its turn consecrate itself to the great work of making itself worthy of them and their fellow-countrymen? And do we not owe it to them nnd to ourselves that they shall not have made their sacrifice in vain, dying for a country unworthy of them? And this applies not only to Britain within the narrow seas, but to the greater .Britain across the oceans. Let us resolve then to make this Empire worthy of flie great sacrifice by which its existence has been preserved.