The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1916. THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MA Y 17, 1916. THE OLD AND THE NEW.

The belief that men of the present ar weaker or les.s brave than men of th past has been held in all ages, says tin Auckland Star in an interesting article It reminds one of the common sayiin about P'uneh—perhaps it would be faire to say common before the war—that i h not so good as it was, and the witt; reply, "No, it never was." Even Home: shared the belief. Ajax, in his fight witl Hector, raised a stone "such as tw< men (or was it more?) in these degen ■rate days could not lift." No dcubl ill through the life of the Roman Ee public there were men who lamentec Dhat Rome had no heroes comparable t( Ekiratius. It has been a common thenw lmong British people in modern times We have heard it contended regretfully ind'by a Scotsman, too, that Brjtisl: idldiers of to-day would not displaj such fiery valor as that of the High anders who fought their way into Luck vow against superior numbers in strong lositions; and before the war there vere probably many who thought that A ere could never be another Albuera * another Badajoz. The great developDent of industrialism in the nineteenth entnry, the growth of the towns at ,hc expense of the country, the ever-in reasing strain of modern life, quite laturally led people to doubt whether he courage of Britons of to-day was qnal to that of their forefathers. The var has shown that this oclief was [uite wrong. There lias been nothing n all the long and glorious records of he British Army finer than scores of .chievoments in this war. Indeed, hisory may rank the defence of the Briish in the first battle of Ypres as a isplay of courage and resolution above Vaterloo. The ordeal of this war has ieen far more severe than anything the Irmy had ever experienced. "Hard lounding. gentlemen," said Wellington t Waterloo, but the pounding lasted inly a few hours. In France and Bel;ium the pounding went on for days .ml weeks and months. It was not mtil the war was a year or more old hat we could meet the enemy on equal erms in this pounding with weapons so cry much mo.re deadly than Napoleon's mooth-bore short-range cannon. Soliiers themselves were surprised at the ortitude of the British troops. One ;cneral who went out with the original xpeditionaiy force, on the eve of gong, frankly confessed lii- fe<ir that the roops would not stand much of the lorrors of modern warfare. There was n old rule that with a loss of ten per ent. of your total force you prepared or retreat, that with a loss of 13 per cut. it was wise to start, and that no indy was expected to hold on after a oss of 25 to 30 per cent. But at Ypres British regiments stood their grbund fter losses of 50 and 60 and 70, and iven 80 per cent. At least squal ourage has been shown by the French, vho before the war were believed by he Germans to be a decadent nation. \. German colonel in passing through a Trench village on his way, as he conidently believed, to Paris, boasted to a French woman, with true German deieacy, that the Germans were going to epopulate France with virile stock. ie.xt day his regiment pasaed in retreat hrough the same village. ' But the Jermans themselves are a proof that in ourage the human race has not deterio-

rated. No fair-minded enemy will deny that tliey are extraordinarily indifferent tD death. Before the war few military authorities outside Germany would have admitted the possibility of Herman commanders being able to get their regiments to advance repeatedly in close formation against a terrilic fire after eighteen months of dreadful losses. The general opinion would have been that no flesh and blood could s.tand what the German army is still suffering at Verdun. It may be said that their discipline compels them to advance under any conditions when ordered to do so, ■but even the iron Prussian discipline would fail without courage in the individual. The soldier from the town seems to have done quite as well in this war as the soldier from the country. A great deal has been written 'about the degeneracy of populations of large cities in Britain, and cwtainly there is a good deal of cause for anxiety. But does i not our experience in this war show that the condition of things has been somewhat exaggerated? Some of the crack regiments of the British Army have been recruited in London and other great cities, and during the war there has been a vast stream of city recruits for the new armies. The army that fought from lions to the Marne and at Ypres contained a large percentage of men recruited from the poorer classes in the cities. Most of them were probably unpromising looking material wlien they came into the Army, but good food, nealthy surroundings, anil drill and discipline turned them into hardy men and fine solJiers. So with the drafts lor the new armies. Thousands come from the slums. Thousands have worked in shops and offices, with little opportunity for physical improvement, and never a thought of soldiering. Months of hard work and wholesome living turn them into troops able to I stand the hardship and nerve-wracking experiences of the trenches. Evidently the average town-dweller has a good constitution, which serves as a solid foundation for military training. From what one reads he shows a quicker intelligence in the field than hi.? comrade from the country, and it is even said that owing to his being accustomed to the noises of city life, his nerves are not so much affected by the bursting of shells and bombs, fierman troops have also shown that the town-dweller is a sturdy* soldier, and a determined fighter. The number of people in Berlin who live in one-room 'dwellings is astonishingly large, and so is the number whose dwellings have no windows and no fireplace. Yet Brandenburgers were chosen to assault Fort Douaumont at Verdun. It is true that when "wealth accumulates and men decay," a country is in a serious state. But this war has shown that accumulation of wealth does not imply decay of manhood. On many a field the manhood of the Empire has proved that in courage and resolution it at least maintains the standards of its forefathers.