DECLARATION DAY.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15318, 4 August 1915, Page 9

DECLARATION DAY.

ONE YEAR OF WAR.

A SOLID AND DETERMINED EMPIRE.

THE RENEWAL OF VOWS.

The Justice of Optimism. "I am not in tho least ashamed to call myself an optimist. Not that I underrate or have ever encouraged my countrymen by any word ot mine to underrate the prowess of tho enemy, tho gravity of the struggle, and the imperious need for the unsleeping exercise of our national qualities of patience, constancy, resolution, and fortitude. lam an optimist, as I hope yoa are, because I believe first and foremost in the righteousness of our cause, and next because I am confident that by personal and corporate effort and self-sacrifice there is nothing that we shall leave untried or undone to bring that cause, be tho struggle short or lons, to a glorious and decisive mbuo. And this is my last word to you: Let there not bo a man or a woman among us who would not then be able to say: 'I was not idle. I took such a part as I could in the greatest taak which, in all tho storied annals of our country, has ever fallen to tho lot of Great Britain to achieve.' " —Mr Asquith, London, May 4th. To the End. "'How long will the war lahti' That is a question asked me repeatedly. It was put to Abraham Lincoln in another war full of trials, full oi vicissitudes, and full of moments of depression. His answer was: *We accepted this war for a worthy object, and this war will end when that object is attained.' He added—and this must bo tho sentiment of every true-hearted Britisher to-day—'Under God I hope it will never end until that time comcs.' " —Mr Lloyd George. ** Sacrifices for the Common Cause." "I feci through every fibre of my being that at this great crisis of our history, not only is there every call upon the manhood ol tho nation, but we aro all asked, whether old or young, rich or poor, to make sacrifices for the common cause. We aro called to n task as great and noble aqd as intimately connected with tho progress, prosperity, and morality of mankind ns any nation was in the whole long histoiy of human effort." Mr Balfour, at the Guildhall, September 4th, 1014. The Call for Heroism. '•What is our duty? Our duty is this: Each of us, in his sphere, you on the Press, wo in our departments, the men in the workshops and yards, in every sphere of life, so to act that when the lust ot' those men has left for foreign lands to fight for the flag it shall not bo said even then that all the heroism has quitted tho shores of Britain."—Mr Lloyd Goorgo, London, May 7th. ♦•Man's Unconquerable Mind." "Little did our enemy understand or realise when he wantonly opened the gates of war what forces he was unchaining in overy quarter of the globo where the English language was spoken, and where tho froo traditions of our race have entered into the life blood of the people. Ho has from the first, and increasingly so as he proceeded, violated evory law of God and of man step by stop down the incline to a depth of unmeasured infamy—ho has mobilised against him all the powers and influences which aro at tho back of the free spirit of mankind. War, we know well, is not fought with spiritual weapons. It needs, and never more did it need than witn us to-day, physical strength and incessant flow of numbers, ail tho equipment and apparatus that science can .devise or industry supply. It is more than ever befpro a question, not of personal • prowess or of •' brilliant surprises, but of the steady ana unsleeping organisation of tho whole of tho material resources of our community, s But, lot us never for a moment forget what wo aro fighting to achieve, and. still more, what we are fighting to avert. Wo have noble comrade# in arms, but. in Wordsworth's phrase, wo havp also great Allies none tho less potent becauso to the eyo of sense they are invisible, and among them is 'Man's unconquerable mind.' "—Mr ABquith, nt tho Guildhall, May 19th, 1010. No Peace Until —- "There can be no peace until Belgium i« free, until she has had such compensation as can be given for the bitter, cruel wrongs that Belgian citizens have suffered. No peace can bo mad® until France has once, again brought liberty, the right to think, to speak, to smile for her own provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. No peace can be made until heroic Serbia wins the : just reward for bor constancy and courage. No peace can be made until Russia finds satisfaction for her lands which hare beetl ravaged, and her dignity which has been trampled under foot, and -for the uwwlta wnich have been heaped upon her. And no peace can be signed until tho outer world satisfaction is found for the loffitlmato aspirations of our fellow.citizens across tho «ea in Africa and in tho Pacific."—Mr Chamberlain, at Birmingham, April 16th, 1015.