THE BIG MEN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3097, 30 May 1917, Page 6

THE BIG MEN

ENGLAND'S "GREAT RANKER"

MR. C. J. PARR'S IMPRESSIONS

Very interesting impressions of men and events as he saw, them on his recent visit to England as a member of ■ tho l'urli-Ameiitary delegation from New Zealand which visited the Old Country during last year were given by .Mr. C. J. Purr, ILL , ., in ,n address which he delivered to the New Zealand Club at u luncheon yesterday, at which be was the guest of honour. Air. C. 13. Wheeler presided, and there was a good attendance of members.

Mr. Parr said that the Imperial Government had tried a very important experiment Inst year by inviting from all the Overeeas Dominions Parliamentary representatives, to see how the great war machine was working, and to see what Great Britain was doing to win tho struggle. The delegates had visited the Vrcnch and the British fronts' in France, had seen the British Navy away in the mists of the North Sea, a'nd hall there mot the great seamen .lellicoe and Beatty, and had spent a week going through munition works in which were employed a million moivaud half a million women making munitions for their husbands and brothers at the front. Mr. Parr spoke mostly of the great men he had seen, and his sketches of them were extraordinarily clear and frank, and, to his hearers, intensely interesting. It is finite true that every one of these men has been sketched by the most brilliant ptns in Britain, but there is always a now interest in hearing again, from a man who has lately seen them, of the circumstances under which he saw them, and of how they appeared to him when seeing them for the first time. .

Perhaps the sketch that will bo most interesting, although by no means the best of his collection, was that given by Air. Parr of the foremost soldier of the Umpire, Sir William Robertson, the great ranker. "He disclaimed all idea oi making a speech to us," said ll r. Parr. "It has been said that good soldiers and sailors are not good speakers— certainly Sir John Jellicoe is the worst public speaker 1 ever listened to in all my life—but Sir William Robertson, has a pleasant, chatty way with him, ami ho took us into his confidence for about an hour. He" is a. plain man from the Midlands, retaining still a. very pronounced Lincolnshire burr, and lie chatted to us snout the great things of the war in a way which gave us the impression that he was not at all overburdeued with the groat responsibilities he is carrying. The spell of Kitchener's name brought millions into the Army, but the man who disciplined them, the man whose great organising brain, shaped that great mass P, men—clerks, artisans, journalists, all wilts of men, men who had no thought ot war a few months before, who loathed war—into the greatest fighting machine the. world has ever seen, was Sir AVilliam rouerbson. History will write Ills name in large letters some day. Unobtrusive, retiring, he quietly pursues his work, careless of public opinion, anxious onlv to win. the war.

"He told us many things about the maii-power on the two fronts in August last, whou we had an advantage in manpower on the West front of about three (o two. Sir William Robertson was' of opinion that by April, the' month just gone by, the preponderance of man-pow-er in our favour would be raised to the proportion of two to one. Of course, Sir William Robertson did not count on the Russian- debacle—nobody did—and that lias completely altered the situation I remember his telling us about the tin--preparedness of the Umpire for this war \Ye were criminally unready. It took us two years to get ready, and in that time Irauce β-aved the situation. I phn.ll never forget the tribute paid"to La Belle France by the great soldier. Thev threw back two millions of the Germans at the battle of the Jfarne, and there achieved a victory the results of which had been .greater than those of any battle in tlio history of mankind. Sir William Roberteon let us see a little into things in Russia. He told us that the Russian transport was in a shocking state. They were actually bringing munitions up to the front lines in donkey carts! And the extraordinary tiling \ra.s that fhey would have no help in the matter from Britain or Prance. Eventually they eaid they would have one man. They agreed to take Kitchener's advice, and Kitchener was on his way to Russia to reorganise the Russian transport when he met his fate in the. Hampshire.

"Sir William 'Robertson was quite clear on one thing: he said that accordin" to human chances the Germans should have won the war in the firet year or two years, but now on the human chances Germany could not win. lu September last it was calculated dial; we were setting level with the Germans in the production of munitions, and it was hoped that in April We should double', from Britain alone, the munitions output of Germany. ... I expect to sen the Germans driven out of France and out of Belgium before the campaign of this summer ends.

"This war," Mr. Parr continued, "may not have up any great genius, no man on Hie civil side comparable with Chatham as a War Minister, or no .Napoleon on the military 6ide, but I believe that, an examination of the whole history of the war will show that (here has been- a greater average standard oi' leadership both on the military and the civil side than has ever been displayed in any other war. I believe that 'Lloyd George's name will go down as the great leader and the only possible leader of the British democracy in this supreme trial. The name of- Kitchener will be writ largo, and Sir William Robertson's name will not be forgotten. And T am sure that the old French llarshal Joffre, who threw back two millions of the Germane at the Marne, and saved the whole situation, will go down, to history as one of the greatest generals--ever 6eeu. "In my humble view this war has •proved one thing clearly: it has proved that in a democracy the mere party politician in an hour of great crisis is a total failure. To-day the composition of the Lloyd George Cabinet proves clearly that common sense has triumphed over the nai'ty system in the Old Land. T believe that after .the war. there will lip new pnrtie.e—there, will nlways be differences—but T do not believe we have made these great, sacriiies.to «et back to our little troubles again. The , war ie soine to maVe bigger /men of us. a bicger nation of us, and a bigger Empire." (Anplause.)

Before the company dispersed Mr W \V. Franm. til* composer of "Australia \\ ill be There," sanjr the song.