A WAR DICTATORSHIP.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15489, 17 January 1916, Page 4

A WAR DICTATORSHIP.

THE EMPIRE'S SACRIFICE.' (from our own correspondent.) LONDON, December 3; Mr Bonar Law, speaking at the Royal ooottish.Corporation, said: — • "Perhaps the chief issue which will be decidcd by this war is whether a free people, with free institutions, when it comes to a trial of force 3 and forco alone, can hold its own* against military desootism. Such despotism lias great advantages ill war, but that is all. The Romans, with the practical wisdom which accounted largely for their greatness, in the hour of-national danger, suspended their institutions and appointed a dictator. Over and over again in the history of the ■world it has been found that the concentratioh of power, civil and military, in a single hand, has given a tremendous advantage. Ono hundred years ago the vital forces of Franco never becamo trulv formidable to tho world untu they were concentrated in tho hands or Napoleon. Yet there is no man 111 this country, I Relieve, no matter to whatever class or party lio belongs, who will not have preferred even tho defects of freo institutions to tho rule of an arbitrary dictator. "There never was such solidarity as there is to-day. Consider what lias been done by every class.. Some ot us, I daresay, have. listened to speakers who spoke, perhaps, with contempt or the idle rich, hut we all „kno\y now that that particular -class, whatever other defects it may have, has not been wanting cither in courage or in patriotism. They have given of thenbest. It is the same with the middle class. What about the working classes ? We used to be told that you could only appeal to the working class through their pockets. know bet'ter now. They havo given as freely as the best of their very best in the service of tho country. We hear complaints of strikes. Such an idea is horrible at such a time. But think how little there has been of it. I can say with truth, that never in the history of our country—and never, I believe, in the history of any country—has - the wttole peoplo been so united. y "Over and over again, urcat Empires like ours, whose strength was in commerce and on the sea, havo gone down before a military despotism such as that wo are facing. They havo gone down, but there is ono great difference, a vital difference. They paid others to fight their battles; they ivero not willing to defend tlieir own rights with their own blood. That is not true of us, for never in our history has our race shown its fighting qualities hotter than it is showing them today. All tho heroism which has been shown, and the blood which has been sacrificed, will be sacrificed in vain if we do not attain this end—that never again in our time, or in tho time of our children or grandchildren, will it be in the power of any man to turn the world into tho charnel house it is now. The advantages are not all on ono side. There is a moral force which; even in a struggle like this, if it lias a is stronger that the material force. No better example of what moral force meacs has been seen in tho whole history of the world than in the share which has been taken in this war by the great Dominions of the British Empire. Of the Australians and New Zealanders it is not too much to say that better troops, with more resource, with more steadfastness, and more courage, have never existed in th e world. (Cheers.) And it has not been in vain. Whatever, the result of the operations in the Dardanelles may be. what these men have dono will ]iv e for ever in the memory not only of the Australians but of every man with the name of Britisher, smd that peninsula where they lie buried will be for ever hallowed."