VISITING EDITORS

Grey River Argus, 18 September 1918, Page 4

VISITING EDITORS

RETURN FROM THE FRONT

IMPRESSIONS EPITOMISED. "UNTO US IS VICTORY." ELOQUENT MESSAGE FROM MR. PIRANI. The following message has been received from Mr. Pirani, one. of the New Zealand press delegates visiting Britain at the invitation of tho Imperial authorities:— P LONDON, Sept. 13. The Editorial mission returned to London To-day, after an extensive tour of France and Flanders, The New Zealand delegates and indeed the whole party of overseas editors, have been greatly impressed by what they were privileged! to see and to learn, on and behind the historic western front. We have seen the great war machine working at; high pressure— a marvel ot stupendous and complicated organisation — running -with seeming miraculous smoothness and precision. We have seen our splendid men at work; talked with them about their experiences; listened with delight to their eagerly told tales of some other fellow's dauntless valour — never by any chance do they enthuse about what they themselves have done — and have discovered renewed inspiration in their cheerful optimism.

Here and there, in the semi confidential privacy of mess-room or billet, one heard whispers of sins of omission and commission; stories of somebody's alleged biunders, but these are matter which, if they do not lack foundation in fact', must be left to be washed up after the war. Meantime they are but incidents, more or less inevitable happenings in the world-re-deeming enterprise to which we have set our heads. '■'■■

When we left New Zealand, the Hun was shaking his mailed fist' at a threatened Paris, and making the world gasp, lest by his prodigal onslaught, he should wrest the longcoveted Channel ports from the defenders. The spring carnival of slaughter was in full swing, and the issue was still in doubt.. What has happened in the interim? You in New Zealand know our gallant troops have spiung from the defensive to the offensive. They have swept back the Huns, and are still pushing forward. Thousands upon thousands of prisoners, caged behind the Allied lines, testify to the success of their heroic operations. Paris the Beautiful is still the undisturbed capital of La Belle France; the Channel ports still fly the Allied flags; America has continued to make good; Britannia still rules the waves, and the end, though not yet, is nearer than— but, there! I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. This, though, I can say— for it is writ large — of ail that we have seen, unto us is to be the victory. Everywhere, in the base camps, in tne billets, behind the lines, in the battered and bloodstained trenches, on the crowded roads, everywhere, amid this welter of blood and pain, aye, even in the hospitals, on tue wan drawn faces of tne oattle-torn heroes, it is written:— "Unto us is to) be the victory." Way? Because the salvation of humanity and the preservation of demociacy demand it; because right mus.' prevail over might; because, despite our national sins and shortcoming**, we are in this fight on the side ox God, and, unuer his ' Almighty captaincy, deteat is unthinkable. No man could walk over the giound hallowed by the life-blood oi so many ox our dearest JtuusiOxK, without being touched by the overwhelming sadness of it an. War, from near-at-hand, looks so terribly different. It s frightful, it is ghastly; yet it is wonderfuny and awiuny grand. _a calls to the imagination the. soul-stir-ring harmony of the "Dead March,*" as it might be played by a thousand mighty bands, followed by the "Uiory Song" as sung by all the sons of men, m unison' witu tne countless choirs of Heaven. * That is why we editors have conic back from the Western Front with the song of victoiy on our lips. \Ve-__ave been where tmngs petty and littio paic into insigunicancc, where only tho one big tmng counts, where tne brotherhoou of man, weeded iv the furnace of pain and suffering*, finds its fullest and truest expression, and where in the insciutabie wisdom or the Omnipotent there is being woi kea out a new and bitter order of things. Our message to you ail is: "Carry on! An will be weill ' '