THE EMPIRE'S HOME.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 March 1916, Page 6

THE EMPIRE'S HOME.

GERMANY'S TWO GREAT SURPRISES I LORD ROSEBERY ON OVERSEAS , PATRIOTISM. Lord Rosebery, in December last, formally opened the King George and Queen Mary Victoria League Club for Men of the Oversea Forces, which has been instituted in Edinburgh. Lord Roaebery said, inter alia:—There have been two great surprises in this gigantic war. One surprise has been for ipurselve's and the other for the enemy. The surprise for ourselves was this: that we could not conceive it possible that a great civilised country, which believed itself to stand at the head of the culture of the world, which had achieved a prosperity beyond all human grievance, swelling in 40 years from 40 millions of a population to nearly 70 millions, having made a commerce unexampled in the history of the world, having potent armies and potent fleets for its defence — we said we could ont have believed it possible that this nation was all the time, with genial smiles and with Judas kisßes, its Chief visiting England amid the acclamations of a simple-hearted people, attended by the chief of his detectives (as spies)—we could aot have believed it possible that thi3 JSkpire, by a deliberate and infamous donspiracy against the liberties of the world, was all the time plotting a war of which ho human being at this moment can see the limits, but which every child can see means the ruin and devastation of Europe. We could not believe that at the commencement of this war it would tear up a treaty to which its solemn signature had been more than once affixed, that it would ravage and devastate and ruin an innocent kingdom, which it hopes in its ravaged condition now to add to its empire. We could not believe that it would seek, by means which I will not characterise, to sink passenger vessels containing hundreds and thousands of innocent travellers, all in the lust of some vile idea of' conquest, which. God helping .is, shall never he fulfilled. That was a surprise. It was not a pleasant surprise. The perfidy of nnpnrcnt friends, the unprooting of all ideas of international honor, the destruction of the basis on which all civilisation must rest! We were called Teuton brothers, coming off the same stock. "Bland deputations came, crowded with oily burcomnsters mid silver-tongued professors, to preach a doctrine of peace, of amity, of brotherhood between two great Empires! Some of us were not deceived, but the most of us wished to be deceived, and the undeceiving of our people has been one of the rudest surprises of this war. The other surprise was for our enemies.i They had plotted everywhere. Tlley had planted spies everywhere. I Prussia has disseminated spies everywhere. Slio thought she was sure of stirring disaffection everywhere. She had her emissaries in India, her emissaries in Egypt, in Canada and Australia, and Xew Zealand for all I know. She had everywhere men perfidiously working through newspapers and otherwise to' stir up a spirit of disaffection through the British Empire. What has been the result ? From the moment war was declared every part of the Empire leapt, up as by a common impulse and rushed 1. W« - -4

try. In those dim and distant days that I have spoken of, when I visited Canada and Australia and Mew Zealand that sentiment wag by no means so strong. There was in Sydney a witty and clever newspaper with an immense vogue—l will not name, because all Sydney folk here will know it —which devoted all its energies to impairing and satirising the Imperial connection, and in those days, though" the toast of the Queen was always warmly responded to, one felt there was not at that time the soirit to make any alarming sacrifices for the Empire, There was a feeling that so long as the old mother kept her Fleet going thbre was not much necessity for others to tax themselves in its support. But gradually the Imperial sentiment has been becoming warmer and warmer under the inspiration of visits to the Mother Country and far-seeing statesmen who have fostered the idea. But even then no one could have believed that dominions were willing to sacrifice their last shilling and their last man in the defenci? of the unity of the Empite. That is the glorious surprise which our enemies unconsciously prepared for us, but henceforth, come weal, come woe, the British Empire is a world-wide fact, with which all the universe has got to deal. So long as we stick together, and our union is now cemented thickly with blood shed in this war, there is no danger can happen to us which we arc not 1 capable of confronting. I ask you overseas men, /-ho have displayed such splendid valor in the Dar- ! danelles and elsewhere, valor which will never be forgotten as long as English history exists, and which has made our own soldiers almost jealous—we ask you to remember the fact that in Great Britain, in thig island of ours, our heart heats as warmly to you as in any of the more remote continents from which you have come. It did not seem unnatural, when the war broke out, that the Canadians, three thousand miles off, and the Australians, thirteen thousand miles away, might feel that they had no immediate concern in this affair. But that they felt it was vital to them shows that they are not merely animated by feelings of patriots, but of statesmen, and be sure of this: that we will not fail you. You have not failed us, and we will not fail you. The breasts of the Mother of Empire have not run dry. She is still prepared, out of hev forty millions in this island, to/ send forth her last man rather than be defeated in this war, which would mean extinction for the Empire; and we, on the other hand, ask yon not, to fail lis; to continue, as you are, sending masses of heroic fellows to serve with our brave fellow s at the front. (Applause). And let me end with the word "Home." Remember that this is your home as much as ouvs. SuppAse we were beaten to : our knees in this war—l only mention ' this as a ridiculous hypothesis—suppose [ in time nothing remains of this island, its coal and manufactures exhausted, a sort of battered and abandoned camp, it would always remain your home. You would then possibly constitute empires, each of you more powerful than flreat Britain has ever been, but this island would ever remain to you as a sort of Westminster Abbey—a shrine which yon would protect with vonr lives, and to which you would come as now as to home. (Loud applause).