Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1934. TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 210, 4 August 1934, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1934. TWENTY YEARS AGO.

To-day is the twentieth anniversary for the British Empire of the outbreak of the Great War. To many people it is only one of the impressive dates in the history of that tremendous struggle; to those who were old enough to sense its effect upon the world, or to take part in it, the day is a dividing line in their lives, separating two sharply contrasted periods, the pre-war and the postwar. A survey of the years immediately preceding the Great War recalls times which, in spite of certain anxieties and troubles, were mostly dominated by peace, security, and reasonable prosperity. The world to all intents and purposes was proceeding tranquilly with no hint of a devastating conflagration soon to blast a large part of Europe and leave no part of the world untouched by its effects. The assassination at Serajevo on June 28 was the spark that kindled the war. Even then and for some days afterwards most of the Chancelleries of Europe did not fear the gravest consequences of the murder of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. But as the days passed and mid-July was reached, the grim danger of war became manifest. Germany was the sinister mind behind Austria in seeking satisfaction from Serbia, and in spite of efforts on the part of Great Britain, Russia, and France to prevent a crisis Austria forced war upon her weaker neighbour, setting in motion forces which were to bring Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and Belgium among other nations against the Central Powers, with whom Bulgaria and Turkey linked their fortunes. More than 42 million men were mobilised for the conflict, and according to figures compiled by the Bankers’ Trust Company of New York it is said to have cost 56,000 million pounds. More than five million men, the flower of their race, lost _ their lives, and more than 22 millions were wounded or maimed. In the Empire almost nine million troops were mobilised, a million were killed or died from wounds or sickness, and several millions were incapacitated. In the combatant countries men and women went short of food or fuel so that the armies in the field would not be prejudiced; neutral nations did not escape privations, Scandinavia and Spain having to curtail their public utilities for want of customary imports of coal. Hardly a part of the globe escaped some effect of the gigantic struggle.

Yet when peace came it did not bring calm to a weary world. The settling down process has been fraught with grave unrest, revolution, and impoverishment, with in more recent years a complete dislocation of woidd markets. Now after twenty years the world presents a problem that tests statesmanship to its greatest heights. National unrest pervades Europe; loans are in default, Budgets are unbalanced, markets are closed by high tariffs against each other. Democratic government has been displaced by dictatorships. In Austria last week a man who bravely defied the efforts of his country’s ally of 1914 to imperil her sovereignty has paid with his life for his courage and unstinted devotion to her service. His death, it was feared, might provoke war, but the situation today is vastly different from when the assassination of 1914 occurred. In all this welter of unrest the British Empire stands out boldly for the manner in which it has met these two troubled decades. In Britain herself there lias been no need for dictators or Fascists. As the

Attorney-General said recently, she is almost the only country in Europe where racial terrors are not present, and everyone is enjoying full rights. “The' only hope for the Europe and the world,” he added, “is Britain, which stands like a rock in a sea of trouble.” It is well to recognise this great truth, for many difficulties created twenty years ago still remain to be settled.