FAITH IN ENGLISH IDEALS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 223, 8 June 1918, Page 2

FAITH IN ENGLISH IDEALS

. VIEWS 01? A CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY. Lord Lcverhulmc, in conversation with a representative of tho London 'Daily Chronicle," declared that for the AngloSaxon race to knuckle down to the German would be an eternal disgrace. After discussing the possibility that the war might last from three to five years, Lord Leverhulme said: "I can contemplate anything rather than the knuckling doffn of tho Anglo-Saxon race to the German. That would be eternal disgrace. Wo should never survive it. It would bo our ruin. My opinion is that financo will never stop us. I don't care how big nur debt may be, we can shoulder it. . . , But I am a little suspicious about bankers. Of course, ifs only a guess, I don't know, but I can't help thinking a banker must have been talking to Lord Lansdowne. before he wrote those letters.' Bankers are as timid as' rabbits. I have noticed that all my life. No sooner does a man fall ill than they 'ly, to their ledgers, thinking he's going to die. to seo how much he owes, them. They are almost all like that—extraordinarily timid. It's very curious, but they seldom havo the courage which is essential to enterprise of any magnitude. But finance won't Btop us. ". . . Our debt after finishing off the Napoleonic menace was eight hundred millions. It is calculated that our national wealth now is tenfold what it was then. I sas it is a hundredfold. Think of the discoveries which have been made 6inee Waterloo. We mine for coal at an infinitely greater depth. Our modern mining for ell minerals is a involution. Then think of tho revolution, equally great, in chemistry, transport, aericulture. marketing—in fact, everything. Then think of the present extent of the British Empire. Tenfold! I say the national wealth, at the ver.v least, is a hundredfold ureter than it was in Napolecu's day. We shall shoulder our debt.

. lias the Russian smash affected the ideals with which England went to war? Has it modified my opinion as regards German character? The answer is clear. That so-called peace emphasises everything for which England went to war, and puts into flaming italics, if there are such things, everything in German character that is a menace to tho happiness of mankind. Never, before did I seo so vividly how essential it is to defeat Germany. And never before did I feel so sharply in my very bones that to bow to Germany, to accept Germany's will, would mean our eternal disgrace. Fight on? Of courso we must tight on. Is there an Englishman who doubts it? Is there an Englishman, after this Russian peace, who would trust the Germans, who could bring himself to sit at a conference table with them arranging the future of mankind? Don't think of frontiers. Don't think of .territory, Think of it as the future of men, women, and children. Would you arrange that future with the Germans of Brest? Never mind about Armenian luussacres, Serbian massacres, Belgian massacres, U-boat atrocities here, there, and everywhere; don't think of those things, but think simply of tile Peace Treaty of Brest. Would you negotiate the future of men, women, and children v-ith tho German scoundrels who trapped and deluded and disarmed Russians to their ruin?

". . . Any peace made with an undefeated Germany, any peace, would undermine our Anglo-Saxon mentality for centuries. We should never bo the same race again. All our idealism would, bo clodded over by the emasculating opportunism of the materialist. Wo should bo like the Germans. We 6hoitld havo ;i bagman morality. We should walk tho earth with the same sort of feeling that a card-sharper must have in his brain. Wo should havo 1 failed to say the eternal No. We 6hould havo accepted hislion-our-on what grounds? On the grounds of convenience. What an end for our rnoe! —at any rate what a poison to hand on to our children! Dishonour rather than sacrifice? Do you think our children would survive that? Isn't there a time when a nation must say, and mean, Death rather than Dishonour? Isn't dishonour moro fatal than a loss of acres?