The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1911. OCTOBER 21, 1805.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 103, 21 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1911. OCTOBER 21, 1805.

To-day is the Imperial day of days, the anniversary of an event that altered the destinies of the nations and by the brains of a British genius .and the might of his ships and men secured for Britain the supremacy of the sea. Nelson, by winning the Battle of Trafalgar, made.it possible for Britain's colonial jewels to be set in the diadem of Empire. Perhaps these are matters "of chance. It may be that even without the definite victory at Trafalgar a lesson to the world in courage and efficiency—Britain might have survived the loss of preslige and yet won her colonial Empire. But it is not likely. We may believe wilh heart and soul that, but for Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar we NVw Zealanders would never have been in possession of this country, and that the history of Hie progress of the last century would not be ' so over- ■ wlieliiiingly a history of the proj gress of tin' British people. Tn New Zealand Trafalgar Day attracts less attention than Labor Day. bul there could have been no Labor Day if there had been no Trafalgar Day. Had Nelson's ac--1 ion al Ti" !'"!<;■;!r been only as successful or indecisive as that of the British squadrons under Sir Robert fabler, who engaged the combined fleets of France and Spain off Finisterre dining July, his name would uol now lie an inspiration to every man and boy in Hie British Navy and to millions of Britishers I he world over. The spirit of the Navy of Nelson's day is the spirit of the Navy in 1011, and we recall without apology the to choose his officers for the desperate enterprise that re-cast history, he replied to the Admiralty: "My lords, I thank you for your

'gracious permission. It is impossible to choose the wrong men." Without the sublime trust in -his men, a trust which inspired the whole Navy to greatest action and unselfishness, even Nelson could not have accomplished his gigantic task. To-day we are rather disposed to belittle an organisation that may produce its Nelsons when the time arrives. We forget the fury of the past in the peacefulness of the present, but on each recurring occasion when the opportunity produces the men our sentiments undergo an entire change and we worship the saviours of the country. The history of our Empire is the history of its great men, its guiding hands, its outstanding intellects. In Trafalgar times, a great nation's fate is held in the hand of a single Nelson. A nation or an empire does well to enshrine the memory of its creators or emancipators in their hearts, and though it be the fashion of the small-minded to dwell on unworthy characteristics of our supreme Imperialists, who in many things are weakly human, >-yet,do the healthy minded see the stupendous superiority of a Nelson, a Wellington, a Pitt, a Bright, or a Gladstone. Nelson by his deeds gave us our license as a free, separate and successful people. The moral victory he obtained made the ultimate defeat of the Master of Europe an easier matter! He inspired all with whom he came in contact with his own devotion to duty, his matchless courage, his tireless persistence under physical infirmity. Everybody who has seen the brass plate on the old victory inscribed, "Here Nelson Fell," must feel the inspiration of his. genius. And to-day is Trafalgar Day, Nelson's Day, the day of days in the Empire's history, for it gave the greatest Empire the world has ever seen a new lease of life that pulses more strongly than ever because of its greatest admiral.