The Daily News. MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1914. OUR NEW ALLIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 130, 26 October 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1914. OUR NEW ALLIES.

The arrangement of the forces engaged in the present great European war presents a change of partners which seems at first not only strange but anomalous. For centuries Britain and France were enemies. For years Britain and Russia were Allies. We fought side by side with Prussia against France at Waterloo. Then we fought side by side with France against Russia in the Crimean War But now there is a complete change of partnership. We are fighting along with our old enemies, France and Russia, against our old Ally, Prussia. What makes the new alliance all the mo-re remarkable is the fact that we are bound by ties of blood with Germany while separated by them from both France and Russia. What has brought about this singular transformation? How come the Teuton, the Celt and the Slav to be Allies engaged in war against the Teuton? The explanation of the mystery is not furnished by a mere ejihcmeral quarrel with Germany about the right of Austria to declare war against Sorvia. The, solution of the problem lies far deeper than that. The present war is distinctly and emphatically a war of ideals. Germany and Austria have (lung out to Europe the pirates' defiant challenge, "Let him take who has the power, and let him keep who can." We have drawn the sword to brand that impious motto with infamy and to spend our j best blood in the determination to cm.-h j it.; supporters. The band which makes Great Britain, France, and Russia allies to-day is the gradual and growing acceptance, by all of them of the ideal of justice as the law of civilised nations. We join to-day with France and Russia in repudiating the freebooters' idea t.iat force makes right. The nation that accepts that ideal is as great a criminal as the burglar who breaks into an unarmed house; as the bushranger who sticks up the mail coach. Militarism is only another name for robbery under arms. We stand with our Allies, France and Russia, to-day for constitutional government, for liberty guarded by law. This does not, of course, mean that the ideal of the sacrednow of liberty has been accepted with equal readiness and fullness by all the Allies who are standing side by side in the effort to resist tyranny and agrandisement. What it does mean is that our Allies are gradually approaching this ideal, while, our enemies are steadfastly and persistently receding from it. The democratic ideal of government has been slowly but surely ground into the mind of the British nation by centuries of struggle and rivers of blood. It b«9 become the keystone of the arch of British legislation. It has been bought by a great price, but it has como to stay. The doctrine of the divine right of kings cost one of the Stuarts his head, and the last of them ihis throne. Lecky, in his "History of England in the Eighteenth Century,'' tells us that the dominant fact of that century was the slow, silent building up of the democratio ideal till at last it became a, wall of granite —the bedrock of the British constitution. The British statesmen who fought for tho realisation ot that ideal till they secured its eternal establishment io the Declaration of Rights, the Bill of Bights, tho freedom of 'Parliament, the freedom of the Press, had no quarrel with the throne -per se. Their o»!y quarrel was with the abuse of the authority of tlie throne. They rerereneed the Royal Wood. They would ialnitely have preferred the retaining of the iere-

ditary success of the old Royal House if fcliat retention could have been made compatible with the maintenance of the civil and religioua liberty of the people. But much aa they loved the Royal blood, they loved the liberty of the people still more; and at last their fidelity and firmness accomplished the establishment of the ideal of a king who lives not on the people, but for them. To-day the throne of England i 3 the safest in the civilised world because it stands "broad based upon the people's will." The cost of the establishment of the democratic ideal in France was more terrible still, ft was brought about only by the ava- j lancho of the French Revolution and the overthrow of the puppet Emperors Napoleon I. and 111. But it is established now so firmly that it will stand Rl long aa the French nation stands. Russia can hardly be said to have altogether accepted the democratic ideal yet. But it ia slowly coming round towards it. The Czars were born despots. lAnd the Harons, the bulwarks of the Russian throne, were—-probably they still are—as despotic as the Czars. But the idea of the right of the people to the protection of law ia slowly saturating tee minds of the whole Russian nation. In spite of the reactionary rule of Alexander JIT., the seeds sown by the teaching of Tolstoi and his followers are bearing fruit. There is a striking illustration of the extent to which the i influence of the democratic ideal is spreading, even among the Barons in i Seaton Merriman's splendid story, "The j Sowers." And there is an even more I impressivo illustration of the same' truth in the descriptions of modern Russia given by Foster Fraser in his eyeopening work, "Siberia as it is." The Duma and the Council of Empire hare now equal right of initiating legislation, and measures before being laid before the Czar to receive the Imperial sanction must be passed by both Houses. These facta show that if Russia is not jot democratic, it may fairly be said to bo democratising. But Germany stands alone as the one uncompromising upholder of irresponsible Imperialism. The Kaiser's motto is, "The only right is mine." The people have no rights at all. There is scarcely any exaggeration in the role ascribed to him in the sarcasm, "Mo und Gott." Practically he says, "I am God, because the army rules the nation and I rule the army!" He has been saying that to Germany for years. And now he has taken upon himself to say it to Europe. He aims , at nothing less than being Emperor of Europe. There never was a more im- , holy alliance than that between Germany and Austria. If Germany and Austria succeed in crushing France, Belgium and Russia, the Kaiscr'g next step will be to crush Austria. But we are decormined that he never shall succeed. And : therefore, we welcome as our Allies in this terrible but righteous and necessary J war Russia and France, who are just as determined as we are to prevent the I German Eagle from spreading its sable wings over a crushed and humiliated I Europe. The end is not yet. The struggle may last long, but to believe ' that God rules.the world is to believe j that in the end right must be might. "The mills of God grind slowly, hut they I grind exceeding small." We hope j even yet to see them grind the military despotism and cruel greed of Germany into dust as small a3 that whL-h ! covered the ruins of the empires of I Alexander, the Caesars and Charlemagne. | Our one present duty is never to dc- ' spair of the eventual success of our I righteous cause. The British Empire : was never so united as it is now. Britain, Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand present a solid phalanx the reserve forces of which are immeasurable. Xo breath of friction, no spark of jealousy mars the union of the ailiej. United we .stand. And th„ strength born of that unity will yet live to sing its paeon of victory over the gime of conqueicd tyrannv and slaughtered ' lust. I