A UNITED NATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9873, 14 August 1914, Page 4

A UNITED NATION.

For the first time in sixty years Britain finds herself involved in a great European war, which promises already to be the most momentous in the world's history. The realisation of this fact gives rise in different individuals to varying emotions, but there are one or two thoughts that seem to be common to all. The nation as a whole is agreed that it is a just war undertaken in the sacred name of liberty. The Empire could not have avoided it with honour, or indeed with safety, and as if by instinct the whole British nation has felt this to be true. The war, terrible as its consequences will be, is thus admittedly a popular one, though there is no jingoism in the intense wave of patriotic fervour that has swept through the Empire permeating all races, classes and creeds. The supreme conflict is being approached in a serious spirit, which admits the magnitude of the work before the nation, and is grimly determined to carry it through to the bitter end. The splendid unanimity of the whole nation must have a tremendous moral effect in the struggle upon which we have entered. There are no longer any local politics, any parties, sections or factions—all have been welded together by the fire of patriotism into one glowing mass of loyalty and service. As in the "brave days of old" it is a time when "none is for the party, all are for the State." This is the first great victory of the war, and a victory, too, which no material defeat can greatly tarnish. Another thought that seems to be in every mind is that, as it has always been, the fleet is Britain's bulwark. The question that is heard on all sides has reference to the navy, and it is news from the North Sea that is most anxiously waited for. It is generally felt ' that the sea is our domain, and in that arena we look with confidence for ultimate victory, though, perhaps, at the cost of great, and probably enormous, losses. We have the preponderance of material strength, and the men who man our ships are of the same dauntless breed as those who fought under Grenville, Drake, Benbow, Rodney, Nelson, and a hundred other captains of renown. If a great preponderance in courage, skill, dash, and vast resources can achieve victory, then victory is already ours. It is no wonder that, assured of the justness of her quarrel, and confident of her power on land and sea, the Empire enters calmly and determinedly upon a struggle that has had no parallel in the history of the human race.