THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY. OCTOBER 23, 1914. THE HOPEFUL OUTLOOK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15747, 23 October 1914, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY. OCTOBER 23, 1914. THE HOPEFUL OUTLOOK.

That intangible but very real feeling by which public opinion instinctively and almost automatically responds to the impression made by the general tendency of important happenings has become unmistakably hopeful and confident in the matter of the war. This feeling has been growing and strengthening since the early days of September, when the German host visibly shrank from its planned attack upon Paris, and, swerving eastward, was brought to bay at the Marne. Throughout August, while there was never any doubt in loyal British minds as to the ultimate outcome of tho titanic struggle, there was an unavoidable feeling of uncertainty as to the dangers which must be encountered and the sacrifices which must be made. It was conceivably possible that victory could only be attained by superhuman efforts. The road to final and conclusive peace seemed to lead through a dark and doubtful landscape, in which the potency of Germany and the fighting qualities of the French were mysterious and unknown features. Moreover, the public mind had not become accustomed to tho fact that occasional mishaps, afloat or ashore, do not seriously affect the fortunes of war, and that sound judgment of the progress of events must be based upon broad conditions, and not upon isolated happenings. Since the turn of the tide at the Marne the outlook has so f.teadily improved that it is no longer possible to think of the situation as anything but favourable and cheering notwithstanding the fall J of Antwerp and the occupation by the enemy of a large part of Belgium. These events in Belgium were undoubtedly depressing, and temporarily turned public attention from the proceedings on the main battlefields. It was so universally anticipated that the sorrows of Belgium would be mitigated by the ■ progress of the Allies that the aggravation of her plight by the reinforced attack of the Germans was grievously disappointing. Now that it is seen that the Germans have not increased their advantage by this cruel aggravation of Belgian woes, and that the Allied movement is not to be checked, the public realises that the general procession of events is decidedly satisfactory. Occasional merchantmen may be sunk by stray German cruisers, but the sea-roads are as open as the streets of a city, which, in spite of its policing, cannot be entirely cleared of burglars and footpadsOccasional cruisers arc sunk by German mines and submarines, but whenever fighting takes place our seamen demonstrate their superiority, and the command of the seas is not in question. The vast military preparations of the United Kingdom, and the auxiliary organising of its Dominions, goes on uninterruptedly under cover of the naval shield. So vast are these Imperial preparations that in the Spring it will be possible for the Imperial Government to place between half a million and a million British troops on the Continent, and to maintain full strength until the making of peace. We are beginning to understand the, meaning of this and of the remarkable inclination of

various other European nations, I now neutral, to enter the Great War on the side of liberty and civilisation. Germany is being held to-day. Her utmost efforts fail to break down the wall of steel that is gradually forcing her back from France, or to shatter the Russian armies on her eastern frontier. Austria has become almost a negligible factor; her armies have no heart in a war to which she was dragged by the Kaiser; her provinces seethe with sedition ; her collapse would astonish none. Germany fights with the desperation of a vainglorious government and a machine-drilled people, but the German Army has already lost its prestige, and the French have recovered the steady courage which so long made them strong in war. In this steadying of the French, the British army in the field, "General French's insignificant little army,'' has been an inspiring factor. It "paced'' its allies until they needed no "pacing." It set them a constant example of matchless endurance against overwhelming odds, until they caught its temper and matched it in. the gallant Gallic spirit. In estimating this, we must remember that our British regiments were veteran regiments, traditionally accustomed to war, actually trained in the "little wars'" of our long-drawn Imperial frontiers. Nor must we forget the influence of the heroic Belgian resistance to in-vasion-a resistance which is as admirable to-day as it was when the little nation made its first stand at Liege. Here we have, then, the Allied position: Armies of proved reliability, of sufficient strength to hold and force back the Germans, and with vast reinforcements available in the Spring, reinforcements coming in the west from the British,

and in the east'from the inexhaustible reserves of Russia. What has Germany to expect? She strained her every energy in her plunge against Paris—and failed. She has made, another tremendous effort to make another advance along the 'English Channel by way of Northern Belgium—and has failed. She has called her youths and her old men to the field, and the Allied fronts remain unbroken, east as well as west- Her navy is in hiding, and her foreign trade is being annihilated. She has taken Antwerp and Louvain, Rheims and Maubeuge; but though she thus carried the war

away from German soil in the west, she can hardly hope to resist that pressure which is steadily forcing her home again. All her brutalities have only made the nations the more resolved to prevent another experience of them; all her duplicity and faithlessness have only hardened the determination to give her no other opportunity to assassinate peaceful neighbours and to keep civilisation balancing on the verge of destruction. As we have throughout the Empire and among the Allies an unmistakablygrowing sense of hopefulness and confidence, so there is evidently in Germany and among the Germans a growing feeling of despondency and hopelessness. They imagined that because they were drilled by Prussian drill-sergeants, armed with Krupp guns, and served by Zeppelins, they could defy civilisation, tear up treaties, break agreements, destroy self-government, and plunder the world. This was sheer barbarism, of course, and foredoomed to the fate of barbarous enterprises. The free states are hopeful and confident because they realise that civilisation is safe, and the crushing of German brigandage merely a matter of persistence and time.