The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1915. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 213, 16 February 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1915. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR.

lii a recent number of the Observer appears a remarkable article upon the significant'> of the -war, in which the writer approaches the subject from a somewhat novel point of view, one that should be of interest to all those who are accustomed to analyse causes and effects. There are, lie points out, epoch making points of time that stand up at great intervals like summits, sometimes appearing as tingle peaks in solitary eminence, but more often the dominating altitudes of history are in groups closely approaching each other in grandeur. So may the war of I'JH-laJthc long looked-t'or Armageddon—be followed by more than its match. The present war lias lowered the significance of many tilings that seemed important in days not far behind us, and has even reduced many of the long accepted values of other generations and centuries. "All the future," lie states, ''will look back with amazement to the age we live in, and endeavor by still deeper research to understand it." So far as tile cause of the war is concerned the nearest approach to it in history is tho campaign instituted with the object of crushing the power of Napoleon, but there tho comparison ends. It is the greatest and most destructive of all Wi-.rs, for it is carried on by forces on land and sea, as well as by forces in the air and under the waters. The armies engaged in this terrific struggle are not counted by thousands, but by millions, while the engines of death and destruction are such as have never been brought to bear on the matter of destroying life and property. At the outset it was two small nations—Belgium and Sci'via--that, in a tight for liberty, llimg themselves across tlie path of the Teutonic hosts struggling for supreme dominion, and the part those two little countries luivo played in the war will go down to history in letters of gold. What followed We all know only too well, Mil what is to come is veiled, except that iv,. are assured by both the French and British Prime Ministers that we will not sheath the sword until the military domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed. It is hard to keep the mind fresh to a due sense of the unexampled prodigies that are happening around us or approaching, but we are animated and inspired by the knowledge that in the end there should be a lasting peace. .Many things will 1|(. altered and some swept away. Were it not for this suliinue faith in the ultimate issue of the struggle the ordeal would be too terribh; to face, and t.ie possibility of a compromise entertained. The Allies, however, have put their hands to the plough and there is no turning bade until the cause of freedom and right is established on a linn basis. "The war is working other changes," says the Morning Post. "It puts out the lights betimes and makes people go to bed at a healthy hour. It iias extinguished for the moment art and literature. The corrupting and international cynicism of the theatre jars upon people who are for once in earnest about something. Novelists who devoted'

themselves to the exploration of sex and egotism inw find that the public have coased to be interested in the sorrows and eccentricities of the pampered individual. The poet and the painter, who lmd become so super-subtle as to have lost toucli with all bnt coteries, find themselves without audience or occupation. If they rediscover patriotism ! they will find a new and more fruitful' outlet for their energies. A national theatre, 'a national literature, and a national art may all subsist in war, but they must breathe something of the national spirit." There is thus loss and gain; loss in liberty and in the culture of tlio individual; gain in national strength of the spirit of patriotism; loss in wealth and luxury, gain in courage and fortitude; loss in the arts of civilisation, gain in a simpler and sterner life; but above all there is the gain in the consciousness that a nation must b t! prepared to sacrifice much for that organised strength which is necessary to secure its honor and its existence. Something of this aspect of affairs is dawning on the people of the British Empire and is reflected in the action of the overseas dominions. It has been a time of awakening as well as a t : mo of stress, but if when peaco comes there is a relapse into ease and license shall betray all the better purposes that are intermingled with the struggle, besides destroy the work of those who have given their lives in upholding right against might. We can therefore fairly claim that the most pressing duties of the present time are those connected with the practice of restraint, self-discipline and forbearance, as habits deliberately acquired and meant to last. That there will bo much suffering after the war is a matter of certainty. It is all tlio more essential, therefore, that there shall bo accompanying compensation in the national and individual life of the people so that out of evil there may arise a nobler conception of the universal brotherhood of man. •. ; I , i ! ; 1,1 , :