THE STUFF OF THE BRITON.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 80, 26 August 1914, Page 7

THE STUFF OF THE BRITON.

(By Harold Bcgbie.)

It is a very excellent thing, it may be even a wise and highly necessary performance, occasionally to blow a-trum-pet which, if not exactly one's own belongs at any rate to the family. Patriotism is not a vice, but a noble anil edifying virtue, when it is l just pride and righteous love of country, not hatred, jealousy, or swaggering fear of •other countries. And so I welcome the appearance in 1 Mr Dent's Wayfarer's Library of "The i Epistles of Atkins," that trumpeting. [ heroic, but, not boastful book, in which ihe who follows the thread put into f liis hand on the first page by Mr .lames j'Milne finds" himself travelling with a fStout heart and a cheerful eye out of pessimism and out of going-to-the-devil-ism which is the paralytic stroke of so .many minds in the present generation, .straight to love of this fair country, ( pride in its destiny and confidence in its sons. , This book is Tommy Atkins' scrap al,bum of the Boer War, preserving Ins , domestic correspondence, saving for the ,eyes of posterity! his obiter dicta on t .BUch personal matters as how it feels to .fight with modern weapons, how it feels to suffer, and how it feels to die. And as you read this book, laughing at one .moment, singing at the next, almost weeping as you turn the page you b«aware that you are handling the very stuff out of which the British Empire has been made, the stuff of the British people, those spiritual qualities of human personality, come they how they will, which, makes the difference between French and German, Russian and Scandinavian, Briton and Spaniard. Read this gallant book and without ceasing to hate war, and without ceasing to deplore the waste of an armed peace you will find yourself loving the common Briton, getting up at the end to stand before the mirror of conscience to see if you are anything like him. For, as a friend of mine justly says, Thoman Atkins, who is the typical, true Britain, has been "splendid," not merelv at the crossing of the Tugela River, hut nil down the history of Britain. His eourdge is only one part of him, his unconquerable self-confidence is only another pact of him; the heart and centre of the man is an original and Tacy cheerfulness, a queer, half-fiinpant and half-mordant cheerfulness which shines brightest in his black moments, and a steady flame in his darkest hour. This cheerfulness is the essential characteristic of the Briton; it is not created by navy or army; it is not merely the transient defence of Atkins against ennui, and horror, and the pangs of slow agonising death; you ifind it in every slum, in every hamlet; it flows in the milk of the sweated sempstress feeding the young Briton in a filthy dog-hole; it supports the dock laborer as the gates close upon him, and he turns to face rain, hunger, idleness; it is the spirit of coal-mine, factory, and workshop from one -end ot the country to the other; it is the spirit. too, of all those who work among the poor, loving them, this grim, unsmiling. wonderful, and enduring cheerful-

ness. , . .. "Under the raw language of Atkins., says iMr Millie, "lie his principles oi conduct, their foundation sure. They are as bright as the buttons on Ins Sundav red coat, for they are the lining of hi if heart. . . • Hear linn about his country and the larger duties. You understand then the sort of Jignts by which ho steers'* 'A Middlesex drummer wrote homo: "When a Tommy gets wounded, be- is a regular Tlie Haul. .He simply says, 'l've "ot it,' and in such a calm manner, too."" All artillery driver -•'•ot tlirougii the heart calls out. "Oh ' died without further comi- «u. "1 »i ls singing and joking with my mate writes a private describing Stormberg 'wh'ii a bullet struck the top of my helmet. I stopped all of a sudden, and even now the, all chaff me about it. \ Welsh bugler is hit in the arm, and lit savs of the bullet. "I believe I've stoppen it'" A Cordon Highlander is riddled. I heard the officer say. Tttpr chap. !ie * gone'' 15nt, no, 'l'm still I'icking. An Irishman gets'a spirt of lead in him and exclaims. "Ah! and if the brutes have not hit mo! That's one back to them. A second wound. "Be jabcrs if t.ie / haven't bit me a second time. A Hum. "The blackguards might leave a pa ivy alone after they've hit .his wanee." I>a<o would have loved that Irishman. Scott and Oats would have been proud to shake hands with him before he, cro-s----ed over! . . . , And :here is the same music. An Jus* soldier is helping to carry his wounded colonel oil" the. field. A shell explodes close at hand, "Who's lut?_ asks t.ie colonel. "Begorra sir, an' it's it s in the neck .".The colonel says lut mo down." "No sir I am able to carry vou to safety." He does that, and then rolls into the hands of the doctois. Here is the authentic note w'lth a touch of London in it: "It's a bit warm up there: tliey have lit me three times, but haven't rung the bell yet. man savs: "It's no good being afraid o bullets. Nor am I; they just shake \ot nn a bit.'' Two Carabineers are ruling together, when a shell carries oil tlu head of one. "It made me think a hit. says the other. When a shell flies ovci Tommy's bead, he says. ';Made in ,crmanv!" or "They'll keep it on till he hurt somebody." A gunner maug.c.l .a Ladvsniith says simply, "Throw.me out of the way, lads," "The Boers, s«> s another, "were pouring bullets into ... like peas: we saw nothing, yet could not have been served quicked in a cooks iop. And another, a Reservist, writing home, says. "You might ask Tongatc to unii mv garden over form me." T like Mr. 'Milne's comment on that. "He knows it will be done, lor the alliance of simple men is set on a rock." One could write a chapter abo.it Tongatc. , . Do we realise that this is the stub . which we are made, the clay from which we are dug, and that if we are not, these, simple men we ought to be, and scarce have the right to call oursches the sons of Cireat Britain if we are. not And is it not well for us when t. e ton-mes of Westminster turn ag;im,t .their cheeks the froth of hysterics, and the militant pens of the statisticians scratch violently to party orders, pnning that we are short ot lead, sh .it ot iron, and short o! numbers, that t..n simple men of this country, w..ai,-\> . iewel in the van of nations: ' There is a -onnd political value .n jhj s 'i ''-in, for when the eomto:'t.'•ble ('- ' ' "nu'nl. tlie plutocratic I'.lnsses sneak <■' < '"..lagogues and the mob. as sometimes they do. contemptuoiislv and batefullv. it is good for them to be i"minded that these simple men arc not only nearer to that greatness of I'-™.™ l whose asserted dimimshment. Dives, eutching at his money-bags, lugubriously deplores, but are the men and worn, n who have earned the right of Tuigland to call herself both great and glorious the men and women who are. the onl.\ mighty and free England known among

the nations. It is the working Briton —Englishman, Scotsman, Irishman—with his enduring courage, his unuttered selfeon'fidenee, and his griin, grumbling and determined cheerfulness, who is the soul and body of Great Britain, before whom most of those who presume to call themselves Britons have, no other right than to lay at his feet the heavy 'burden of their gratitude.