"BELGIUM THE GLORIOUS AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF NATIONS."

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 16, 17 September 1915, Page 6

"BELGIUM THE GLORIOUS AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF NATIONS."

[To - The Editor Stratford Poet.] ' Dii v . Sir, —Yq\ir -correspondent, “A. E. Beckman,’’ in last night’s issue, writes of “Belgium having clone more for the ideal .of"a Brotherhood of Na- - tump than some great Powers in a tl.ioiisa.nd yearsX” While doubtless this is true, a few extracts from the “Young Age’’ and ' “Herald of the St ah” will be appropriate : “We have to realise that every trn# Nation haj its undeniable place in the great scheme of things, which is the Airsolute’s plan for,big Nations small. ’ ‘'‘E.'.cli has some precious gilt to - give to the world. Perhaps you could tell-.' me some of the precious things in character and culture which have ■come to the world through England; others could tell you some secrets about Scotland ; Bobbie Burns couldik tell us more in a poem; and Lloyd George could tell us some heroic stories of Wales. The world would he poorer even if one of the smallest countries in it were crushed—let alone Belgium.- Each Nation has a life of its own, and for this Britain, rising to heV responsibility of guardian'r»f the weak, prefers to suffer died than surrender the principle ot J freedom within be lav. “Each Nation has a national soul, guarded by the teachers of the world and by great angels; and these great ones are guiding the tremendous forces of tli-' present upheaval, in such ' r way that there "ill ne lomoved from the pathway of each nation something which'- prevented its advance. England will he nobler. France fairer, Belgium sweeter, Germany wiser, and her' splendid ' son!—-the soul that speaks in the music of BcChoven and Wagner.—will take her proper place in the Brotherhood of Nations. We, the brothers and sisters ■>< the fallen on the field of battle, must think, must picture, what kind of world we would have when the clash of arms cease, for as we think, so will the world become in the days when the reins of responsibility come into the hands of the coming citizens to w.eild. To die battling for these ideals is the gladdest fate that-* can befall the voutli in the joy of his dawning manhood. the man in the pride of his strength, the elder in the wisdom of his maturity, aye, and the aged in the rich splendour of Ids whitened head. To be wounded in this war is to be enrolled in the ranks of humanity’s warriors, to have felt the stroke of the sacrificial knife, to bear in the mortal body the glorious scars ot an immortal struggle.”—l am, etc., J. H. FORT). i ■