OPINIONS ON THE WAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15769, 18 November 1914, Page 11

OPINIONS ON THE WAS.

Belgium's sufferings will not- go unredeemed. The might of England will be exerted patiently until full reparation has been obtained. I rejoice we are all together, and that we have the whole Irish people with us. Of course, party, politics are put on one side, and when, after the war is over, we go to the cupboard to take them out again, things wall never be quite the sAme. * The Orangemen of-Bel-fast have given their rifles to the Belgians, and there is no one in —Liberal or Nationalist—who will allow them to be any the worse off for that.—Mr. Winston Churchill.

I hear every day, with growing emotion and gratitude, of the kindly response made by the generous-hearted British people to the appeal of the Belgian Relief Fund, opened to alleviate, in Belgium, the sufferings of the -innocent victims of a barbarous and unjust aggression. Their homes have been destroyed, their land has been laid waste, and why? As my Sovereign, King Albert, says in his telegram to His Majesty King George, these atrocities are perpetrated against the peaceful citizens of a nation whose only crime has been to refuse to be false to her engagements. Great Britain lias appreciated the situation. The kindly feelings of the British Dominions beyond the seas have been manifested by substantial subscriptions. From India, from Australia, "we have received marks of sympathy. Gifts in money and foodstuffs have been spontaneously offered by British firms and forwarded to Belgium. The kindly feelings of all classes have been shown in the most staking manner. These tokens of British friendship will never be forgotten as long as there is a Belgian nation.—Count de la Laing, Belgian Minister in London.

Wo are bound to make the observation of Belgian neutrality—a neutrality guaranteed by a treaty of long standing, to which we were a party—one of .the conditions of our own neutrality. The German Government had asked us to waive that condition and to condone a violation of a solemn and settled treaty to which Germany, as well as ourselves, was a party. There could be but one honourable answer to such a request. Subsequently came the appeal from Belgium, and the gallant resistance mad*, by the Belgians to an overwhelming force. Had Ave sat still and ignored this appeal and this resistance we should, indeed, have been detested by friends and despised by enemies. The progress of the war has revealed what a terrible and immoral thing German militarism is. It is against German militarism that we must fight; the whole of Western Europe would fall under it if Gernjany were to be successful in this war. But, if, as a result of the war, the independence and integrity of the smaller European States can be secured, and Western Europe liberated from the menace of German militarism and the German people itself freed from that militarismfor it is not the German people, but Prussian militarism, which has driven Germany and Europe into this war—if that militarism can be overcome, indeed there will bo a brighter and a freer day for Europe, which will compensate us for the awful sacrifices that war has made.—Sir E. Grey.