The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, JUDY 6, 1918. A GREAT FRATERNAL REUNION.

Taihape Daily Times, 6 July 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, JUDY 6, 1918. A GREAT FRATERNAL REUNION.

(With which is Incorporated! The Tftihape Post and Walnmmo News).

The secession of America from Britain is history that British minds have not enedavoured to perpetuate, but on the anniversary of American Independence Day, the fact was strongly in evidence that it has taken some one hundred and fifty years to completely heal that great rupture between two sections of British people, and to bring about the cementing of a new friendship and of that fraternal relationship that should never have been broken. When the Pilgrim Fathers of America left their homes in Britain they had no idea of building up such a mighty nation, nor did they anticipate that their brethren left in Britain would ever make attempts to penalise them with taxation; to compel them to contribute levies to be used for the benefit of Britain-, and In which they could have no part. The proposal to tax them without allowing them a vote or a voice, or, in fact, any representation, did not appeal to them as the usual British fair policy, and they strongly resented it. They did net, think their parent government would seek to levy blackmail upon their colonising effort's. The British in all parts of the world may be somewhat phlegmatic, and may suffer what appears to be audacious oppression for a time, but resentment will eventually come when all vestiges of injustice must be removed. As it was in the colonisation of America, so it has beer in all subsequent settlement of new lands by British subjects. Britain in those days had not the"'experience in colonising that it has to-day, and there was a tendency in many minds to use the new possessions much as Germany did not hesitate to use her colonies in the present century. There was, some difference of opinion, but the party of greed and injustice prevailed in Britain temporarily, as it did in 1914, and war was precipitated. Avaricious Britons in power, then regarded the new American colony as something to be exploited by taxation for Britain’s benefit, which the colonists regarded as the essence of injustice. Britons were not content with the highly profitable trade that the colonists had built up for them, for they sought to lay heavy taxes upon the goods they supplied them with; the load was too heavy and so unjustlyplaced that the Americans rebelled, and after a bitter war with their unreasonable British brothers final vie. t° r 3' was theirs and they proclaimed their independence. Britain Tost the greatest land ever colonised By greed, ju'-.' as Germany is losing her colonies and her trade at the present time. A reminiscence of this kind is 'forced upon thoughtful people to-day' when we are welcoming and embracing the brother whom Britain turned out of the household a century and a-half ago. No living person can estimate or predict the effect this reunion of brothers, who now represent the two greatest nations on earth, will have upon the future of peoples of the world. It must be great and beneficent as both stand for justice, free, dom and liberty, and let none lose sight of the fact that both voluntarily took up arms in this great war for the cause of justice; for the rights of srnall nations to exist; for the protection of the weak against Tyranny of the strong; for democracy against autocracy, and we have to thank Germany for bringing together these two strong, powerful blood relations who have grown up apart, but who have never lost their natural love of jus. tice 0 and freedom. Our American brothers Have spilt much of their best blood in wining slavery out of the land they settled upon, and they are now sending millions of their sonh to assist their British brothersb>in saving the world from being enslaved by Gef. many. That the various races of people have characteristics that stand indelible against all time and circum-

stances is a fact thrown into bold re- 1 lief by the present world struggle. The Huns to-day have not changed, despite their culture, from what tno Huns were in Attila’s time; whereas, the inherent trait of regnant populi has never been crushed out of the Anglo-Saxon races; it has lived through conquests, and subjection to stronger armed peoples, and the desire of the race is to-day, as it ever was, for a sane form of democracy; for a condition of equal opportunity for everyone loyal to the democracy, and licence or privileges to none. This war has .brought the two great brothers together who stand for that justice and liberty millions will have died for; it has brought about a national reunion unprecedented in history, a blessing that will be remembered in the far-Uway future as one of the world’s greatest and most beneficent events. There are the Lansdownes and Haldanes who would link Britain up with peoples having utteny dissimilar national or racial characteristics; with racial differences that could only have fostered strife and jealousy, contentions and civil wars. In the reunion of British peoples, the war has brought together those natural elements which stand for the various national ideals, and we see what a mighty host is presented to give their lives, if needs be, for justice and liberty, not for themselves alone, but for all peoples. This great united people will co-operate with united determination long after the present conflict is past and Prussianism. has been destroyed, in maintaining the cause for which they are now contending. It was the harsh treatment of a few Britons who happened to have the reins of government at the time that estranged our American kinsmen from us; the controversy in Britain, in which the famous “Junius” took part, discloses that the majority of Britons were opposed to their Governments’ determination to levy heavy taxes on American colonists, but a greater greed has brought the estranged people into the home camp to fight for all that is worth fighting and living for. From this year on, the fourth of July will undoubtedly bring to mind the triumph of those great democratic ideals which are a racial characteristic of . Anglo-Saxon' peoples.