The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1918. PEACE ON EARTH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 437, 27 December 1918, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1918. PEACE ON EARTH.

" We nothing extenuate, nor set down auoht in malice."

.*, The truth of the words '' Peace on Karth " of a Christmas hymn probably were never more realised than has been the occasion this Christmas time. Christmas came to a world from which the horrors of the Great War have been swept away. Conflict and misery still exist, but, so far as the British Empire is concerned, its people have had removed from their shoulders the weight of anxiety which had rested on them for four long years. Thousands in New Zealand have lighter hearts than they had last Christmas. Loved ones have either returned from the battlefield, are now on their way, or may, humanly speaking, be confidently expected in the near future. This Christmas there was not the fear of the " offensive next Spring," for peace has come to the world. But while those may well rejoice whose family circles have bhen reunited, or soon will be, the Christmas sea son fonnd many sad hearts. Many of the bravest and best of our young manhood have paid the supreme sacrifice for the Empire during the closing months of the war, and there were manv empty chairs as a result of the pestilence which walked over our land during "Black November" But for the loyal co-operation of all the Allied soldiers—no matter what their station in private life may have been—we must all eventually have become Germany's slaves. But for the heroic efforts of all classes during the pestilence, the disease must have swept our land ; in the fight against the disease the need for brotherhood and sisterhood was never more forcibly proved. And in the wider held of human activities there must be brotherhood ot the most genuine natuie, if civilisation is to last. \'o class can stand by Itself, and the promoter of divisions and hatred between sections of the people —be he rich man or be he poor man — stands in relation to common welfare as did the German tocivilisation, or the pestilence to human life. " Peace on earth and goodwill amongst men " may therflore truly be applied not only to nations but to the people in general of New Zealand as well as of other countries.