OPINION AND THE WAR.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15777, 19 December 1916, Page 8

OPINION AND THE WAR.

THE THOUGHTS OF LEADERS. NO PREMATURE PEACE. (FROM OCR OWN CORRESrOXDF.XT.) LONDON, November -3. Lord RoseKcry at the opening of an Club in Edinburgh;— "When the historian of the future comcs to write tho narrative of this war, lie will find two great features in it. One is the infamous and subterranean plot which was laid with so much skill and foresight, and such devilish hypocrisy by the Prussians against the liberty and independence of Europe. The other surelv is tins, that the war has enabled the British Empifo to find herself. There was a British Empire before the war, loosely compacted, united by loyaltv to the Crown, but not such a British Empire as exists now. Will not the historian of the future say this: —Striking as was the attack on the. liberties of Europe and on the British Empire, there was one thing even more remarkable, that at the verv instant of the declaration of war from every nation that owed allegiance to the British Crown came an answer as firm as it wa-s spontaneous, that every nation of this Commonweal tli separated by thousands of miles from the Mother Country sprang to artns as at the word of command? (Cheers.) ' The Prussians, I have no doubt, calculated, but their calculations in al lthat related to human nature and human sympathy, to human loyalty and human" liberty, were completely fallacious—that the declaration of war would dissolve the' loose bonds that united the Empire, that there would be secessions, abstentions, coolness, r>ossibly armed insurrections; but the Prussian was wrong. There is nothing which unites us so closelv as blood shed in a common and a righteous cause. That is the mortar upon which the Empire is based from now, henceforth, and for ever. (Cheers.) As things are now, I can only see one possibility of anything relaxing the tics which unite the different parte of the Empire. It is this. In some irresponsible nuartcrs I hear some babble of an immediate peace —a sort of "as you were" peace. Is it really supposed that we have undergone the sacrifices that we have made in i order to leave Prussia the devilish power she has been in the past? I venture to sav litis—l cannot, of coruse. speak on behalf of the Dominions—if there was a Minister (which thank God there i-s not) so cowardly, so shortsighted, and imbecile as to conclude a peace of that kind, I am afraid that our Dominions and our Britons beyond the seas would say "a country so governed is not a country to adhere to; we had better find some better statesmen of our own." Now, then, we stand firm and square to our enemies, determined to vanquish and rather to die than be vanquishehd; but Ave have no doubt of the coming victorv any more than wc question the liumanly speaking eternitv of the future of tho British Empire." (Cheers.) . THE ANGER OF NATIONS. Mr Lloyd George, at-Cardiff: — "A nation may be rich in minerals, in if 3 soil, in natural beauties, and in its commerce, but unless it is also rich in great men there is an essential ingredient to national wealth that is missing. Great men in all nations' are like mountains. They attract and assemble the vitalising elements in the heavens, distributing and directing them in the valleys and the plains, so a-s to irrigate the land with their fer- ! tilising qualities. A world without them j would be' cither a desert or a morass. England without,, them would have been a fen of stagnant water, and Wales would have been a wretched swamp. The first thing that strikes me in going through the list of those represented by the statues i s how old was the civilisation of Wales. We are here to honour the great men of a little naticfti —such a small nation compared with the nations that are in the arena. And yet, little nations were never more alive, never more important than they are to-day, in this conflict of gien.iltie Empires. If I were to pass a criticism upon the Allies, I should say that whilst fighting for little nations they have-never fully recognised and realised their value and their potential strength. Britain is now at the full strength of an Imperial tide, and yet whilst the tide of the little nation is high and will get still higher, it will never submerge the joy of tho little nation in its past, in its present, in the future which ft can seo plain to its gaze. The small- nation is like the little spring. It does not cease to have a separate existence even when its waters are merged in the great river. It still runs along the -same valley, under the same name, draining the same watershed. . And if it ceased to flow" and to gather the waters of its own glen the great river would shrink, would lose part of its impetus, and part of the purity of it's waters. That river is now in flood. A storm of righteous anger against a gjiastlv wrong lias swept over the land, and the river is full and overflowing its banks. I thank God that now there arc cataracts from the mountains of Wales that swell the torrents of angry waters that will sweep away for ever the oppressions that have menaced several generations." (Cheers.) "BUSINESS" AND IDEALS. Mr Stephen Graham, on the Russian Church:— "A conspicuous place is held in Russian religious practice by the idea of consecration. Each person wears next to his body his baptismal cross, and each house has its ikon corner attesting its consecration to Christ. The churches aroj full of worshippers. The Russian feels that we live in a miraculous world, and the story the Russian gives of tho war is a "miraculous story. The idea of setting up a "Business Government" in this country 1 dislike. If we Itecome a Business State great numbers of idealises will probably commit suicide, go into the desert, or disappear from public life, because a Business Government leaves very little room for collective religious and artistic expression. From Russia conies to us such spiritual power that we ought to cultivate Russian friendship." AN APPEAL FOR IRELAND. I.xr John Redmond, at Sligo:— "The first necessity from an Imperial point of view is to.alleviate the excited and inflamed feelings of tho Irish people, and so long as martial law exists there, Ireland's national representatives in Parliament must bo in permanent and open opposition. I said to the Government, 'Treat the penal servitude prisoners as political prisoners aro treated in every civilised country in tho world.' I have heard that the Go vernment intend shortly to do this thing. If that is their intention, I ask them, in Heaven's name, why delay? (Cheers.) Will they hold back theso concessions until they are absolutely useless in affecting public opinion in this country? Is it to be onco again a concession by the English Government too lato? To redeem the present situation somo great act of understanding and sympathetic statesmanship is necessarv. (Cheers.) Ireland to-day is seething with suspicion and distrust of English statesmen and English promises. I say to England let her meet distrust by trust, and put Homo liule into immediate operation. (Cheers.) Is English statesmanship so bankrupt, is British chivalry so cold, that they cannot even in this crisis of their fate rise to a bold and generous act? It is said that there is an understanding that during the war there should be no controversial topics raised in tho Bouso .of Commons, but tho worst of all controversies and of all calamities fot; tho British limpiro is to

have Ireland, as. the is to-day, n weakness. a shame, and a danger. Fighting for the independence of small nationalities on the Continent- of Europe. and maintaining martial law ill Ireland — the position is intolerable, ridiculous, and shameful. (Cheers.) I say to England to-day, 'One groat act of understanding statesmanship in Ireland, and more would be done for the future of the British Empire, and more would be done for the winning of this war. than by tho alliance of half a dozen, neutral States or by another successful advanec oil the Somme." (Cheers.) SAVING THE BABIES. Mr Herbert Samuel, on Child ..elfare :— "In proportion as \ve have been led, unhappily, to perfect the science of destroying life, so we must, on the other hand, endeavour to perfect the science of preserving life. In the clash of world forces it is the mass of the nation that counts. It is not enough for tho nation to have a great sout in order to lie effective; it must: have a strong body as well. It is not enough, that the quality shall he good; it is very necessary that the quantity should lie sufficient. Therefore I make no apology for asking people, even ;n these days, to consider the problem of infant mortality. Happily in recent years much has been achieved in the direction of diminishing tho rate of infant mortality. It is a social success of which we have every reason to be proud that in a period of little more than ten years our infant mortality has been reduced by nearly one-third. There are two old ideas which a good many people of somewhat shallow thought hold on this question of infant mor-tality—quasi-scientific ideas that carried a good deal of weight a few years back. One is that infant mortality does not matter; that it is an example of evolution; that the fittest survives; that the weakest go by the board, and that the race is the stronger thereby. Wo forget that the very things which kill the weaker maim those who survive, and that by getting rid of those social conditions which cause the high rate of infant mortality, you get rid at the same time of the _ conditions which cause weakness, infirmity, disease in a large proportion of the children who grow up to live imperfect lives owing to the conditions in which they were bora and reared. The other of these old .ideas is the notion that tho country is over-populated, those who hold it failing to realise that overCrowding in particular areas is one thing, and over-population of the country is an entirely different thing. Unquestionably there is overcrowding, but there is no ground whatever for think-ing-that our population of -10,C00,000 is all that these islands can hold, any more than a population of'2o^ooo, (k,J was more than it could hold when the rate of infant mortality was very much higher than now." MAI?SH'AL lIINDENBURG'.'s OPTIMISM. Marshal von H'indenburg, to -a correspondent of tho "Neuc Freic Presse," Vienna: — "Prophecy is thankless, and it is better to abandon it in wartime, it is possible that 1917 will bring battles that will decide the war, but I do not know, and nobody knows. I only know wc will fight to a decision/' "Is there anv prospect of ending the war by a decisive stroke?" lie was asked, and he replied: —"Perhaps. The development of the conditions must show that, but I should not like to express a definite opinion on the subject. It is obvious that at Tannenberg it was easier for mo to deliver a decisive blow than now when in the East alone we have to hold a front from the 'Dvina to the Black Sea. But nothing is impossible. The Russian masses are already exhausting themselves. The Russian generals chiefly provide for that. It is true that a younger, generation is springing up. But that makes no difference. Wo also have men enough. Germany has plenty of reserves, and in Austria-Hungary the reserves arc far from being exhausted. Wc have never feared the great numbers of the Russians. Wc recognise no numerical superiority. The new Russian .armies are as good and as bad a-s the old ones. Tho best quality of the Russian soldier remains his blind obedience. He has made no progress in a military sense. Only .the Russian artillery has become more effective, thanks to teaching by French and Japanese officers, who •in some cases actually command it. But even now our German and Austro-Hun-garian artillery is superior. For ono period* the Russians had more ammunition than formerly. Now their supplies of ammunition have diminished, and as socn as the winter comes they will be unable to receive ammunition by Archangel and Vladivostok." APPRECIATION OF THE Y.M.C.A. Lord French, at a luncheon at Leeds, held in connexion with the endeavour to raise £25.000 for the furtherance of Y.M.C.A. work in the field:— "I knGW of my own knowledge of the valuable work the Association is doing, and the simply wonderful influence it wields among the troops both in France and England. When I joined the Army some forty years ago the sole refuge of the soldier off duty was the canteen. Then the wonderful institutions of which the Association was one of the foremost started their work, and the chango they have effected in the moral atmosphere of the soldier's lifo and character have been wonderful indeed. My year and a half's experience as Commander-in-Chief in France showed that nowhere was tho institution's humanising influence more pronounced than on the blood-stained battlefields. Our soldiers have been subjected '-o strain in this tcrrific war which no soldier had ever before experienced, and the bravery, constancy, and coolness they have displayed are. I feel sure, to' be attributed to something outside the ordinary run of things. I believe the ideals within them have been roused by the work of this and similar institutions, and their contempt for death and their sense of duty, honour, and patriotism are infinitely stronger." (Hear, hear.) TRIBUTE TO THE WOMEN. Lord French on tho samo occasion, respecting the work of the women: — "Tho women of England of every class deserve a tribute for the part they are playing in the war in munition factories, in tho hospitals, and elsewhere. Going through tho wards of the hospitals I find ladies who have been brought up in luxury scrubbing floors and doing menial tasks of all kinds. 1 believe when the history of this war comes to be written the work of the women of England will furnish some of its most brilliant pages. I congratulate Leeds on the splendid lead, which it flas given in providing hospitals for tho wounded and _in tho way it was turning out munitions."