The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1918 DUAL RIGHT IS MIGHT.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 November 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1918 DUAL RIGHT IS MIGHT.

(With which is Incorporated The Xaihape Post and Walnmrino News).

Three of the most powerful and long-standing monarchies of the world are passing as a result of the war that is now undoubtedly at an end. As Charlemagne —Karl der Grosse —was the first Kaiser, so Wilhelm the second, is the last. The reign of the Kaisers, with three interregnums, has lasted from the year 800 to the present time. The warring proclivities of Charlemagne ended by his being crowned Kaiser in Rome, which he had just conquered. Wilhelm the second, with pride and ostentation thought to accomplish more than Charlemagne had done by his bravery arid unsurpassed daring, and he lost the empire which Charlemagne had instituted. Napoleon overthrew the old Germanic Empire, but it was re-established again by a confederation of the north German States in 1871, when William the first of Prussia was crowned Kaiser. The constitution of the German Empire dates from that time, early in the year 1871, and among* its chief provisions were, “all the States of Germany form an eternal union for the protection of the realm and the care of the welfare of the German people.” How long has this German eternity lasted? Only a few paltry years, not the lifetime of a man. The union was effeted for an unholy 'purpose; it was established to enable a policy of aggression to be commenced that should cast into the shade the great performances with the sword all previous German Emperors, from Charlemagne down; it was established on the basis that might is right, and might became the god of the German people. In a retrospect of the world’s history there is one feature which stands out boldly, and that is the disastrously chequered careers of all monarchies that sought to govern by might alone. To-day the cult of might is in the dust, and the student of history, had he been the fugitive exKaiser, could have been sure that any modern champion of might as opposed to right would have gone the Way that Champions in History have invariably gone. Once more history has repeated itself and while the might is right exponent is cast down into the dust, the love of right is being extolled, and the foremost nations of the world have not spared their best life in fighting for its maintenance. The constitution of the German Empire, signed in 1871, indicates what the future was to bring forth; the Deutscher Kaiser, that was the King of Prussia, has the supreme direction of the military and political affairs of the Empire vested in him; the Kaiser represents the Empire internal!}'. He can declare defensive wars, make peace as well as enter into treaties with other nations, receive and appoint dors without reference to any other authority or party, and to-day the Kaiser is a fugitive in a strange country. Herr Ballin, one of the most farseeing of Empire-builders, has disclosed to the world what Germany’s immediate aim was of this first of its wars; it was to annex the whole continent of Europe from the Bay of Biscay to the Ural Mountains, to militarily occupy London and Paris, and the Kaiser was to dictate peace at Buckingham Palace; Britain was to suffer the deepest indignity and degradation.

All history has shown that the forces of right have always ultimately triumphed over the forces of might, and to-day the cast-off Kaiser is sheltering in a remote hidingplace amongst the Dutch people, whose land, Herr Ballin tells the world, it was his intention to annex. With every failure of might right has triumphed with an addition of new world strength, and While the unprecedented might is now on its knees begging for mercy, right is being enthroned in almost every nation that is worthy of the name. All

peoples applaud right and never is might applauded unless it be exercised in the cause of right. The might is right cult has suffered an overwhelming defeat; political might has reached the age of its passing, but there is the commercial might is right which promises to be as great a curse on human life as any political might has ever been. We have had it undeniably demonstrated that this commercial might is right is rapidly destroying the British Empire by rendering it bankrupt of its manhood. Political might is right has been scotched by the voice and sword of the people, not by theif kings, and there is going to be no exception in

the ease of the commercial might is right that is now a heavy curse upon mankind. Might devoid of right is a blind force, it has never seen the ultimate of its application; commercial might goes blindly on, not heeding, not seeing the forces of might that are rising against it. In its trail it is leaving starvation, broken physiques, ill-fed, ill-housed, overworked men. that should be in the full glory of their manhood, in hundreds of thousands, and a larger number of Britain’s women wbo should be the pride of the Empire, who should be in the full bloom of womanhood. The condition of the British Empire calls aloud day and night unceasingly for the patriots who will volunteer to save Britain’s manhood and womanhood from the blasting, withering, destroying operations of commercial might is right, as disclosed in trusts, combines and syndicates. Commercial might is right is a slimy, crawling, insiduotfs, insinuating thing, which, while it pretends to benefit it strikes its deadly fangs into the heart of the Empire’s manhood, killing off hundreds of thousands, and leaving millions of human wrecks, men and women, in its accursed trail. It is Prussianism applied in all its hideousness to commerce and in its train there is the squalor, starvation and dying humanity to mark its course. To neglect this curse is to invite another; men, maddened by it are becoming exasperated into accepting anything, even Bolshevism, in fighting it. Is the world to escape from enslavement by the German Kaiser only to be more inhumanly enslaved by the self-crowned kings of capital, who are already marching over hundreds of thousands of the emaciated bodies of their victims in Britain to the commercial conquest of the world? It is past belief that sane people of the Empire will permit the menace of commercial might is right at one extreme and Bolshevism at the other to go on destroying our Empire and civilisation at both ends. Will the people of this Dominion in common with Britain and other British dependencies imitate the drift into the bloodiest war the world has knowledge of, by standing indifferently by while the bloodiest scenes in the greatest revolution , the world has knowledge commence to he enacted? No less an authority than the present British Government has stated that Britain’s face is scarlet with shame;, that. Britain ,is disgraced in the company ; of Russia, .Germany and Turkey, in the practice of cruelty upon its people. The legalised might is right of capitalism is fast destroying the manhood of the British race, and ■ 11 ’ it is only the organised voice of the people that can remove this greatest of all blots that has ever appeared on the British escutcheon The rise and fall of the political might is, right is now matter of history, let the commercial, the capitalistic might is right be strangled so that the funeral of both may appear in future history as taking place in the same year.