BELGIUM'S GREAT DESTINY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 285, 11 May 1915, Page 6

BELGIUM'S GREAT DESTINY.

11YERY FA ITU IN TOE ALLIES. XKW jMIXiSTKR'.S DECLARATION. Loudon, March 10. M. Paul Ilymans, the new Belgian Minister in London, expressed some in-1 foresting thoughts on the subject of the war :unl the relationship between his country and I'ngland. " Hecent events' have established between Great Britain and Belgium indissoluble bonds," he says in the Daily Telegraph, "(ireat Britain has taken up anus and slit d the blood of her youth to defend the independence and the neutrality of Belgium, betrayed by Germany, who had given her word of j honor to respect them. She lias thrown herself into the long and murderous war to protect and avenge the right. And at the same time she has generously opened her arms to thousands of Belgians whose homes bad been destroyed or who had declined to live under the yoke of the invader. " We shall never forget what wo uwe ta Great Britain. Nor will (ireat Britain forget tile heroic sacrifices of the Belgian " nation—its resolute defence against the German armies which were marching through Be'ginm to reach Paris first, then Dunkirk, and Calais. We broke the first German effort ;it Liege. Up to the end of the month of August we held back the (iernian forces in Belgium, and upon the Yser, by a stubborn resistance, we checked the invader. Cur army has suffered heavy losses, but it has just been reinforced by thousands of young recruits, who have been trained for some mouths in the instruction camps which we have established in France. And the call to arms of all young Belgians of the ages of 18 to 25 who are in France, in Great Britain, or in Belgian territory not occupied by the enemy, will give us fro -n reinforcements.

"OUR KING WILL DO HIS DUTY." "Our army, seasoned and re-consti-tuted, will continue, under the command of the King, nobly to do its duty beside the glorious armies of the Allies. And iu Africa, as in Europe, our colonial troops are co-operating valiantly There are great sufferings in Belgium--physical sufferings which the American Relief Commission, directed with so much generous activity by Mr. Hoover, is striving to mitigate, and moral sufferings Jnttisted by aif'eneniy maladministration. But the population have not for a moment yielded to discouragmcnt. They have faith in the power of the Allies, they heve faith in our national army, they have faith in our .Sovereigns King Albert and Queen Elizabeth, who have not left our soldiers, and have given to all an example of devotion, constancy and stoicism. I have seen the King on various occasions in the course of these tragic events, lie has never lost his coolness, his confidence in the future of the country, lie is the man of duty ; he. will do that duty to the end. " I have from my youth been an admirer of (ireat Britain, of her institutions, of her loyal and firm character to which is added a sensibility always ready to be touched for generous causes Belgium has the cult of liberty. And nowhere is liberty practised with more tolerance and more breadth of mind than on British soil. These affinities contribute still further to bring us closer together. Before the war the Belgian nation had given evidence of its vigor, its moral personality by its industrial and commercial enterprises, by its spirit of initiative, by the works of its artists and writers. During the war "it has revealed the intensity of the national sentiment, its wish to live, and it has show.'i that it cannot conceive life without honour and liberty. "After the war Belgium will employ all her energy in the reconstruction of her economic and political activity. I am sure that the support of (ireat Britain will not be lacking after the war any more than it has been during the war. And the Belgian nation will finally come aggrandised out of the terrible ordeal which it has endured, with new strength, with the esteem of the world, and ripe for great c'Jstinies."