The Press. Wednesday, December 6. 1916. No Change of Aim.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15766, 6 December 1916, Page 6

The Press. Wednesday, December 6. 1916. No Change of Aim.

J.n the very early days uf the war we observed that this war was not merely different in degree from all other wars, but different in kind. 'I he world was plunged into a set of conditions so entirely new that past experience was not likely to be of much assistance to anybody. Kveryone was certain to take a great, many wrong turnings, to hail serious errors r.s valuable truths, to think great perils trifling, and to flee from mere shadows. Kveryone has been doing his part in justifying this belief, ;ind even now it is not easy to know what the effect of any given event may be. A couple of years ago, even a year ago, most people would have been agreed that a drastic change in the British Government would be a calamity, and perhaps it would have been. To-day they are only a minority who wiil attach supreme importance to the necessity of* avoiding any such change. At this stage of the war it is rather unlikely that tho enemy or the neutral countries will he affected in an undesirable way by any smash-up of the Cabinet, and it is in any ca6e of no great consequence what *anyono thinks so long as any chunge that is made makes for a moro vigorous war policy. At the same time it is desirable that there should be left no room for doubt that Britain's aims are quite unchanged. Mr Asquith, in his statement to tho House of Commons, was at the trouble of making an explicit declaration on this vital point. Any reconstruction of tho Cabinet, ho said, would not involvo a departure in any shape or form from the policy already announced to bo pursued since the beginning of the war. This plain statement will dispose of any idea that there has very lately been 6ome change in the war situation. Britain's position is the same as it has been since the beginning. Mr Lloyd George was attacked very bitterly by some of the leading Radical papers for his famous " Hands off" interview, but on October 11th, about a fortnight after, Mr Aaquith spoke with equal firmness to the same purpose, and with that eloquence which is admired as much by his critics as by his adorers. He said: — War, as we now know too well, so (terrible in the loss of life, is justified only by the greatness of its cause. That greatness is measured not merely by the costliness of the sacrifices whicn tiie nation is ready to incur, but moro by the worthiness of the end for which these sacrifices are poured out. The strain which the war imposes on ourselves and our Allies, the hardships which we freely admit it involves to some of those who are not directly concerned in the struggle, the upheaval of trade, tho devastation of territory, the loss of irreplaceable lives; long and sombre procession of cruelty and suffering, lighted u p, as it is, by deathless examples of heroism and chivalry, cannot be allowed to end in some patch-ed-up, precariotis, dishonouring compromise, masquerading under the namo of peace. No one desires to prolong for a single unnecessary day the tragical spectacle of bloodshed and destruction, but wo owe it to those who have given their lives for us in the flower of their youth, iii the hope and promise of the future, that their supreme sacrifice shall not be in vain. The ends of the Allios are well known: they have been frequently and precisely stated. They are not selfish ends, they are not vindictive ends, but they require that there should be adequate reparation for the past and adequate security for the future. On their achievement we in this country honestly believe depend the best hopes of humanity. For them ,we have given, we are giving, what we 'can least afford to give, without stint, without regret, but only as the price by which the world will" purchase and surely hold in tho years to come—protection for the weak, the supremacy of right over force, free development under equal conditions, and each in accordance with its own genius of all tho States, great or_ small, which build up the family of civilised mankind.

This, surely, is plain enough. Yet the " Nation" declared that it was entirely different from Mr Lloyd Georgo's statement, and sought to find in it words and phrases -which made it something like a repudiation, or at any rate a revision. of the War Minister's plain talk. In the debate in which Mr Asfjuith mado tho speech we have quoted Mr Lloyd George pointed out that the opinion he expressed to the American interviewer -was shared bv the Cabinet, tho War Committee, the Government's military advisers and the Allies. But tho "Nation'' declared that it would mot accept it as a Cabinet utterance. It is evident that the Prime Minister's emphatic statement of tho unehangeablencsc of Britain's policy is addressed less to the enemy than to mischiefmakers at Home.