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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 153, 4 August 1914, Page 6

■© The spontaneous response of Canada and Australasia to a set of circumstances which promises to endanger the supremacy of the Mother Country is characteristic of : that permanent feeling of loyalty which, for all his external show of independence and patron'age of things Imperial, lies hidden in the fibre of. every : colonial. Canada has praised New Zealand's promptitude in 'offering the assistance of an expeditionary force to be placed at the disposal of the Imperial authorities, but the northern Dominion herself has demonstrated that she, too, is not laggard or hesitant when the occasion calls. The splendid spontaneity of the oversea dependencies, besides reassuring Great. Britain (if reassurance were necessary) that the Imperial spirit is as sound as ever it was, will have a moral effect the value of which is notto be assessed in •. plain prosaic figures. It is a repetition of the spirit that poured colonial troops into South Africa When the Boer farmerß were causing England considerable anxiety. There can be no doubt but that this example j of practical patriotism was not lost on ■ Germany, and now, with the trouble I liable at any develop into a J life-or-death. struggle between the Kohenzoilern himself and his great rival across the North Sea, the fact will be brought' home to the challenger that the Iniperial unities are one when Engj land is faced with such a crisis. It is improbable that, if developments necessitate the assistance of oversea troops, these latter will be required, to present themselves in the actual fighting line. Though no definite understanding has been arrived at (so far as is known) between the War Office and the colonial authorities with respect to the disposition of the proffered expeditionary forces, it is not unlikely that the men from oversea will be used to release for service British regiments at present garrisoned in India, Egypt, and elsewhere. .