FREE ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 14, 17 January 1940, Page 6

FREE ENGLAND.

PEOPLE IN WARTIME.

IHAULT AND CLEAR-EYED.

AMERICAN'S TRIBUTE.

fßy OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD.)

£tk«. * srsx- «Mg opportualttea during his visit for studying Me and m tb« Reich under war conditions. The following article was published in tne jLondon "-Dally Telegraph."

Xooome beck to the fresh, clean air of England after breathing the foul atmosphere of Germany, so poisoned by its murderous Government's malignity, hate and vituperation—not only against England and every other nation that blocks ite way, but also againet eo many of ite.own citizens—is to enter a new, a wholesome, a free world; is to experience an exaltation of the spirit.

Here men can smile even under the I etrain of a terrible war. Here they look you straight in the eyes with nothing to conceal or apologise for. Hero they talk to you about their hopes, their foe re, their aspiration*, their desires, without looking behind them to <sec if they arc being overheard. Here they criticise their Government, if they eo wish, and close no doors for fear of a Gestapo. Here they have a still free, if not unfettered, Press, and here they ttdl you that, much as they hate the war and all that pertaine to it, this is a job to be done as beet it may. No cant, no self-laudation, no selfpity, no whining. Just a manly, etraightforward, clear-eyed facing the future with the samie magnificent, cool courage, the eame astounding determination that amazed nio at the outbreak of the struggle. Nearly a United Front. I have not found a man or a woman enthusiastic for the war —no"more than in Germany; and, thank heaven, I have found none who have, proteased admiration for it as war. I have encountered many who hate the whole institution, dread the outcome of it all, and feel that the blunders of their own Governments in the paet have helped to bring it on. But I have met none who did not admit the complete, the essential justice of the Allied cause, whether they believed iu war methods or not. The. eerious dissensions of 1914 are nowhere in evidence; it is ae nearly a united front as it could possibly be, granting the existence of conscientious objection to war; and that united front, without heroics or .self-adulation, is still calmly eaying that this war must be won if Kiirope is to be saved, if it is to be a place of habitation of free men. There has been no referendum of the British people on this war, a«s I wish there .might always be in e.very country, but if there had been there can be no doubt whatever of the eize of the majority there would have been. "We'll Have to Go On." In Berlin I was eagerly asked what was the spirit of the British people, and nothing I told them impressed my hearers more than the story of the quite young man who sat next to me on the top of a bus just before I left for Germany. I had asked him the rank of an officer near us, apologising for my ignorance by saying that I was an American. He said: "You have come to London at an unhappy time. It is too bad that you should see it now." I explained that it was not a new city to me, but that I was deeply grieved that war had come to it again.

Very quietly and simply he replied: "Well, it had to come. You see, I am a young man. 1 shall probably have to go and may not come back. But there is no use going on in this way. I don't want to live in a Europe like the one we have lived in for the- last five years. How ean a young man like myself build a home and found a family if he's told every six months he must be ready to go to war?"

That, I assured people in Germany, is just the spirit in which England went into the war. Those are the words used to mo by porters, taxieab drivers, waiters—indeed, all the workers I have had time and opportunity to meet. My chambermaid says cheerfully: ''We'll have to go on till we get rid of that man."

Underneath, I know, the currents of the spirit run fast. Under that mask of calm self-control that has set the Englishman apart for centuries, feelings are deep and deeply stirred. Underneath the emotions of these men and women lies the passion for justice—and the passion for justice, I believe, is stronger in this country than in any other.

(To be Concluded.)