TELLING THE YOUNG PEOPLE

Evening Star, Issue 23492, 5 February 1940, Page 8

TELLING THE YOUNG PEOPLE

WHY BRITAIN FIGHTS In his book, ‘ Why ,We Had to Go to War,’ Mr Arthur Mee, editor of tho ‘ Children’s Newspaper,’ explains to the elder boys and girls at school why, Great Britain is at war with Germany. “We do .not wish,” he says, “to be the masters of the world. We do not seek to be the masters of our Empire. In our own time we have spread wide' the bounds of freedom and surrendered authority and power over those whose liberties we have built up with our lives and treasure. Our oversea dominions, so. gallantly .responding to our need, do it of their own free will. They . are as free to look on as Iceland is while the Motherland is at grips with a foul and arrogant foe. “ Not because we are the masters of the world do we rise against the tyrant who would put it in chains; but because we are the heirs and possessors of the keys of liberty and share it .with mankind. As for the English, said Swedenborg, they have in their inner being an intellectual light._ “ If we have, as Emerson said, al secret vigour -and a pulse like a cannon, it is because there is deep down in us a power put there by God Himself. It ds,; because; in- this lapd of freedom a man feels that he is a spark thrown off from the anvil of God to illumine the dark places of the earth. It is because each one of us has his share in the proud fame of our country. _ “ Not -our Drakes and Raleighs only, not our Shakespeares and Miltons and Cromwells, _ not only , those whose names shine like stars in our history—not those alone have made us what we are, but that vast multitude whose hearts are set immovably in the love of what is right. “ It is the fairplay of the English spirit that has ruled our land for centuries in freedom. It is the thing that impels every lad on a cricket pitch, every scout in his the merchant in our marketplace, the statesman in high rank. It is the spirit that has made our laws the envy of all lands, and has made every man and woman in the street ashamed to be a bully or a brute. .. “So it is that in dark days - like these our strength is in ourselves. It is our patience, our forbearance, our fortitude that will see us through. Wo fight for right and peace as well, for peace not through strength but through justice. The peace we’wish’ for all the world we cherish in our hearts. It was one of our fighting statesmen who said that though_ our hands are active our conscience is at rest. “It is true. We have done what could be done for peace, but against us have been rained such evil thing* as falsehood, injustice, brutishness, oppression, and the most cynical acts of faithlessness ever known in history. “ Twice in our century Europe haa marched to the battlefields because * German ruler broke his word. There is no civilisation if men and nation* are not faithful to each other, for life is not worth living if men break their word. If we cannot believe a man we can have no dealings with him, either buying or selling. “ We buy a thing in a shop believing it to he what it,is said to be; we take the shopman’s word, and_ if he speak* the truth we buy from him again. If he sells us brass and tells us it is gold we buy from him no more, and Li* trade is ruined. Men cannot prosper on a broken word. “ We could have no home to live in if men did not keep their word; We trust our neighbours. They declare themselves friendly and ire believe them. We live side by side with hundreds of people who could rob ns or poison us. but they live at peace with! us instead; they have given their word, and we believe them. We go to bed at night, we leave our homes by day, because we believe that men will keep their word. “ We could, not travel if men did not keep their word. We go into a strange country and trust our lives and our money to people we have never seen before, perhaps to people whose language we do not understand. But here also runs the honourable understanding of men who keep their word. A strange man takes our bag, another takes our money, another carries an important letter. We go on our way because we trust them all. We take their word. “ There is neither work nor wage* for us if we break our word. We work for a week or a month on a promise that our wages will be paid. Men give us their labour, and we give them ours, because we pledge our word. We pu* our money into the bank, we leave our watch at the watchmaker’s, we trust a man with an important piece of information, we risk our lives, on the promise of a word. “We must be free or die; and we who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke must keep our word.” .