The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1911. AN APOSTLE OF PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 102, 20 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1911. AN APOSTLE OF PEACE.

Few people will disbelieve the oftrepeated truth that the history of progress, success and victories of any country is the history of a few individuals—the great' unselfish souls with a passion for humanity and a genius for leadership. Humanity in the lump concerns itself very little about the great questions, and, not caring to examine the reasons for prosperity and progress, eats, drinks and is merry and dies to-morrow, to paraphrase old-fashioned advice. Preparations for great eventualities are not voluntarily made by any people, and it has been the constant business of the prescient to flog communities to action. He who has the facility of "seeing ahead" is either vividly admired or called a "crank," or both, and one of the most admired "cranks" of the present day is Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, the octogenarian soldier and humanist, who has made a life-long of matters Imperial, and who is to-day persisting that the Empire, stronger in men and money and goods than any empire that ever existed, is still weak because unprepared for the eventualities that are, in the belief of the great soldier, inevitable. It lias before been noted that leaders who are convinced of the greatness of their missions have in this generation established a precedent by publicly uttering on all occasions their unmistakable beliefs, and although Lord Roberts is no longer in the armed fighting line, he is still, at an advanced age, using his great influence to prepare Britain for the worst. As in N'ew Zealand so in the Old Land. "Yesterday was fine, it cannot rain to-morrow." and while Britain is forced apparently against, its will to support, a navy larger and more powerful than any that has hitherto existed (here is a distinct feeling thai enforced service in the land forces is humiliating, unnecessary, ignoble and not the business of a "free" man. So that when a persistent, old man rand Lord Roberts is nothing if not. persistent) demands compulsory military service from every able-bodied citizen, he is deposed from his place as a national hero and is awarded the ignominious title of "crank." The basis of.the belief of Lord Roberts is 1 lie basis of the belief of every r-asonable being that the safety of a country is not merely the business of a minority of men specially trained for war but the business of everj

person in the country. But the 1J position the objector takes up is j J; that war is wicked. Therefore do , not prepare for war. If war is ( inevitable—and Lord Roberts as- l sumes it to be so, because of Bri- j i tain's unprcparedness—it is wiek- j ed not to prepare for it. If it is j wicked to insist that every man < shall take his part in the defence ' of the country, it is wicked to have a navy. If it is wicked to have a i navy, it is wicked to have an Em- ' piro, for it is because of force that \ the Empire exists. In the mean- , time, while Britain does not "get her house in order," there is no slackness in the ordering of the "houses" of other countries, and although 100,000 Germans may stand in a square of Berlin and vote for peace, such a motion does not defeat conscription or reduce the ranks of the Kaiser's army by one soldier, "We may indeed hate war with all our souls without abating a.single act in preparation for it. Lord Roberts recently said: "You cannot have social reform without Imperial unity, and you cannot have Imperial unity without an adequate system of 1 -.lmperial defence." No system of defence is adequate that does not take cognisance of every man as a possible aid to it. Under conditions that may occur, the whole of the manhood of Britain may want to protect Britain. In some circumstances it would be impossible to prevent citizens from becoming combatants. The point the great Field-Marshal drives at constantly is that every man shall know what best to do when the time comes for him to do it, and that he does J not know how. The point that is too often missed is that a standing army comprising every ablebodied man in a country is not a menace to peace, but an insurance from it. It is hoped Lord Roberts, aged as he is, will yet be spared years enough to convince his fellow countrymen that he speaks not as an advocate of war but as an apostle of peace. As for himself, his days of battle are over, and his concern is merely for the country he has served so well.