RESPONSE OF COLONIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 168, 22 December 1914, Page 6

RESPONSE OF COLONIES.

-a. WHAT ENGLAND THINKS.

SACRIFICE OF BELGIUM. The following interesting extracts from a letter, dated November 7, from the Rev. I. K. Bealy, of Hatch End, near London, to his uncle, Mr John Lindlcy, of Mount Eden road, Auckland, give an interesting glimpse of England under war conditions:— i "We all have felt a great uplift o' heart at the splendid response of the colonies over the war. It is almost true, | to say that they are more English than the English! The stress of war is, however, telling on us heavily. Families I have known and loved for years have already broken down and dispersed. My choir is decimated—for which I thank heaven, as they have gone to the front! Wc are running two houses for Belgian refugees—3o altogether—and we shall have a third house open shortly, and furnished for more of them. They are all of the better class, but absolutely destitute. Some of them had only an hour's warning to get away from Ghent and Antwerp and Malines—just time to send their old doggie to be chloroformed, pick ii]> a few treasures—one came with a mandolin —and rush off. Many of them had walked for four days and nights to the coast. Some of them, on arriving ill London, were sent to the workhouse, where, they were, packed like sardines in a tin, but all are more than grateful, and one fools humiliated to think how little one is doing for this people who have resisted even unto death for our sake. I "Lord Roberts told a friend of mine ' that the German advance upon Paris was a very near thing indeed. ■

' "Most people are looking forward to a- year's fighting, which will take every able-bodied man we can put in the. field. I well remember when on the Rhine, a few years ago, that awful holt of steel I saw on that line of defence —which is tremendous—and I am sure that every man in Germany will rise to that defence, Socialist or not.

"I wish I had words wherewith to show you men in New Zealand how we here appreciate the help you are sending us. It's just like calling upon a man 'who suddenly says, 'But my dear fellow, I'm your brother! Didn't you know it?' 'And we here had not realised it, and did not think he would do this magnificent, big thing that he is doing."