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IS ENGLAND MAKING GOOD?

NOTABLE ANSWERS TO THE GREAT ISSUE OF THE DAY. London, December 3. Here are some notable answers to the great question—ls England making good ? "What kind of people are these English, who have held dominion over the world for a century long, and who now stand at Armageddon lighting to hold not only their Empire, but even their own central island'/" asked Will Irwin in tiie Metropolitan.- "We shall understand their quandary, we shall understand Lord Kitchener, only by understanding them.

"It takes an axe to wake up an Englishman; but when lie is awake he is about the liveliest thing that lives." "NO ONE RETURNS FROM YP-RES." Lord Northclill'e, answering in the New York Independent the question, "Is England Making Good?'' says: "At the outbreak of war many people shook their heads at the prospect of these young clerks, stenographers, stockbrokers, storekeepers, actors, doctors, •editors, reporters, artists, miners, factoy hands and others being of any use against the highly-trained soldiei's of Germany. "But, as a niatter of fact, in the supreme test of the long ,wrr;sie winter in the trenches and the advance against the machine-gun fire of the enemy,"thesc young men—probably because we are, like you, a nation of game-players, football and the like—have done at least as well as the Germans. In all matters where individual courage and responsibility are concerned they have proved far more efficient than our enemy. "It is notable that the saying'should run through Germany, 'No one returns from Ypres,' for it is at Ypres that we face them and have barred the road to Calais."

SPIRIT OP RUNNYMEDE. Viscount -Bryee presided at a meeting of the Royal Historical Society at Rus-sell-square, when Professor W. S. McKechnie delivered an address on ''Magna Charter, 1215-1915." Lord Bryee said that "the spirit of the men of Runnymede was the spirit of the men of 1915. Seven hundred years had passed since the signing of the Magna Charta and circumstances Had prevented its due celebration. But even the war could not last for ever, and it was to be hoped that next yeai it would be possible to hold a Killer celebration on a larger scale. ''lt was an interesting speculation as to what would have been the history of this country supposing the great barons had never wrested the Great Charter from King John. It was not a little curious that neither France nor Germany, nor even liberty-loving Scotland, had any such momentous ancient document. The greatness of any great work of imagination was shown by the fact that it meant something different to each succeeding age. "The great poems of the world had their special messages to ■ the time in which they were, written, and other messages for other ages," added Lord Bryee. "And so it was with Magna Charta, that great life heritage of "the nation. To the men of the 13th century it meant many definite practical things. For instance, the King himself was not to be above the law, and the rights and liberties of the King's\subjects were to be respected. To the hien of the 17th century it was one of their greatest aids in their constitutional appeal for the upholding of the freedom of the nation. Magna Charta had made itself felt in America, where it was, the very framework of the law. It was the parent of all written constitutions. "We claimed, and rightly claimed, in the present war, that we were striving for liberty's sake. Striving because of the fundamental right of humanity to resist all attempts at oppression. Men learned, liberty slowly, and," concluded Lord Bryee, "we, as Englishmen, having learnt it, had every reason—almost instinct—to fight with might and main to preserve our freedom and" the freedom of others."

EMERSON AND THIS AGED ENGLAND. ' Emerson, speaking at a dinner in Manchester in 1547, said:— "Is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship parting with flying colors from the port, but only that brave sailer which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stripped of her banners, but having ridden out the storm?

"And so, gentlemen. I feel in regard to this aged England, with the possessions, honors and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her

"I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better on a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon."

WORDS OF A SEER. "Those words of a seer," says the Outlook, "gain a deeper meaning "to-day when England is fighting desperately, not only for her life, but for the higher life of the race —for freedom, for law between nations, or public honor and private right. Those who do not comprehend the genius of free institutions do not see that her frank self criticism lias its origin not in her weakness but in her strength; that her security and power lie not in a discipline than transforms her citizens into a colossal machine, hut in the unshakable conviction that right and freedom are not only better than life, but that they are invincible.

'•Sorrow sits by every English fireside and no limit is set to the sacrifices which the country may demand.'' WHERE IS IT? Dr. Paget. Bishop of Stepney, in his new hook, '•Studies in Revival," save: "When centuries ago, the old order broke up and the fall or the Roman Empire shook the very foundations of the world, there was a Christendom strong enough to play an essential part in the enormous work of reconstruction that had to he done. ''Where is such a Christendom now? Where is it, to take a more limited and simpler standpoint, in our own Empire, in our own land? "That is the misgiving, the sense of impotence that turns the vision of opportunity into a sort of nightmare of despair. We know so well what is wanted; the very tiling which the Church professes to be able to supply, the thing which in some vague and general sense the Church believes to be its heritage, it 3 dower, its very reason for existence. Not lost—no, only 'mislaid; not lost, only just now we cannot lay hand upon it. "The love Tiy which men are to know that we are His disciples; the unity

which will make the world believe that the Father sent the Son to be its Saviour; the voice and the utterance hat unbelief can neither gainsay nor resist; the fellowship which i» worth having, for truly it is with the Father and the Son; the love of joy and peace that are the fruit of the indwelling Spirit. . . "No precedent can really guide, us; no mere perseverance in accustomed methods can suffice. No standard of th» past can meet the needs of the overwhelming present or the inscrutable future; for we 'have not been this way before.'".

DESPISERS OF SCIENCE "Had science been despised in the Navy as it is in the Army, where would Britain have been to-day?" asks Nature. "In political and financial circles the contempt is complete; science neither goes out vote-catching, nor pandus to Stock Exchange operations. It is therefore of no importance. Always, and over, and again, science is despised and ignored. "If the public, the nation, and its appointed rulers display such blindness, is it wonderful that national interests, civil as well as military, industrial as well as agricultural, suffer grievously when forced to compete with nations sedulously trained in the cultivation of science? "Ami yonder march the nations full of eyes. Already is doom a-spinning." "As yet we have hardly begun to cut into the fringe of our peace habits. But there must be an iron sacrifice of many habits which mean comfort and convenience. There must be a stern self-denial and contributions by all classes. That is where Mr. McKenna's courage will lie tested. He has never lacked pluck, but will need all he knows," says the Observer.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19160129.2.67

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1916, Page 12

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,357

IS ENGLAND MAKING GOOD? Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1916, Page 12

IS ENGLAND MAKING GOOD? Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1916, Page 12

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