"BUSINESS AS USUAL."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15825, 23 January 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

"BUSINESS AS USUAL."

BY ELSIE K. MORTON.

It was a Scotchman, so they say, who was originally responsible for the nowfamiliar tag, " Business as usual during alterations to the map." But it might as well have been an Englishman or an Irishman, a Canadian, Australian, or New Zealander, for one and all, in spite of difficulties, they have capably carried on business the last five months in every direction, from selling a pound of sugar to raising an army or conducting an election. Wonderfully successful our Dominion has been m carrying on business, the most successful and least troubled country on earth, we have been told. Business has even boomed in some ways, for instance in the shedding of gleams of brightness across the gloom popularly supposed to enshroud the mind of the general public. Newspapers have done more real educative work in the past five months than in the past five-and-htty years, and they're at it still, despite the censor! We know more about everything, from the price of peace to the price of eggs, than we ever learnt and forgot at school. We have gained some badly-needed practical knowledge, as well as how to spell Nietzsche correctly—more or less; where most of 'our food and cTothing comes from; what it means to us to have a warship or two of our own. cruising about, within reachable distance. A busy time it has been for those who suddenly find themselves looked upon as purveyors of valuable information for the enlightenment of the multitude. " You're the fifth to interview me today," remarked one authority on the price of something or other, and that, mind you, with a smile on his face, at the end of an interview, that made him miss his boat home to dinner!

It isn't always an easy matter to carry on business in time of war, however. Things happen so unexpectedly, things calculated to upset the m&t perfect - achinery of organisation and detail. The Kmden found that out. Her general routine woikfc dealing out cataleptic tits to nervous traders, capturing and sinking their vessels, had gone on quite successfully and smoothly for a long time. The wrecking of an isolated cable station v.as merely a detail in the day's work, and she considered it every bit as safe to carrv on business as usual that eventful

morning of November 9 as any other sunshiny morning when there seemed no likelihood of anything wearing armour or carrying guns poking its nose over the horizon, with an eye to mischief. And because the men qt the head of the business of running a nation were alert and wide awake, the Emden, the Elusive l'imj>ernel" of the high seas, is now slowly rotting and blistering under a tropical sun, and an unnumbered host of .New Zealand's and Australia's fighting eons are sending home exhaustive descriptions of tae Land of the pyramids instead of sleeping ".lie last long sleep on some far ocean hod. \\ e have heard a great deal verv great d«TI : —about the Emden tight. .v hero -■ pd when I she was hit, and how many shells killed how many men, but what we haven't heard so much about is the fact that she actually crossed the bows of the great convoy the night before and never evei krov it." because Well, because of just one fact that belongs to another story of vigilance and far-sightedjiess on the part of those entrusted with the business of Jceeo ing free the highways of the sea for England and England's children. What a wonderful business it is, this holding of the outposts of the nation! So little we hear of it. so little there seems to tell. Our ships come and go in saietv. with no greater inconvenience than shrouded port-holes and no deck lights, and we book our passages to England 01 Hongkong or Canada with every expectation of getting there on schedule time. Yet, the sunny seas of the South Pacific, the deeps of the broad Atlantic, even the familiar waterways we all have travelled, are being held for us far away in the stormy waters of the North Sea. Grim and ter-

rible is .the patience of the great grey iieet that guards the coast of Britain. Terrible is its silence, the silence of vast potential forces awaiting " the day," when all accounts shall be squared and humanity avenged. Nothing is known of what is going forward, except now and tu*n hen some swift, dastardly b'.ow falls, unexpected. impossible to ward off then the veil has lifted for a space. Suffice it for tho rest of us that the guardians of Britain's safety are day and night on duty, the greatest brains in the world working out her naval problems the' business of maintaining command of the sea in hands that never falter and hearts that never fail. All the rage of wind and sea, icy grip of northern winter, avail nothing against those grim bulwarks 01 Empire, against that inexorable will to wait. That is all part of the game; a waiting game on seas, active participation on the battlefield but everywhere on land, on sea, the same unfailing courage, the same willingness to stake all on the side of honour, the same readiness to sink self, to work and, if need be, to die so that something greater than self may endure. No shirkers have a place in this grim game. " Business as usual" for England means confidence and courage in the heart of all ber sons and daughters, the moral and spiritual strength that alone wins out in terrible crises. It means the self-immolation and splendid courage which singe of the long road to Tipperary. even while looking calm-eyed into the face of death, the patience and -■iilent heroism which take up the broken threads of life after 1 the gift of one dearest has been accepted by the god of battles, and salves a broken heart by mending the wounds of others. All this it means and much more; how much more is written in no earthly record, although not one sacrifice, victory, heartache, nor tear but finds its place in tho Book by which the accounts of all men and all nations will one day be settled. I hat is the only way in which the Empire can hope to keep on in business ; we can't tee the end of it all, nor does it in the lea*t I matter that we should. There will he enormous debits—we all know that; a

debit in the life-blood of the best and strongest of a nation's manhood, debits that never can be squared in sorrowing hearts, empty homes, broken lives ; but the hand once put to the plough cannot be drawn hack, and there is a debit worse than any of these. There is a debit ot shame that not all the material compensation in the world could wipe out, that passes on from one generation to another, and lives when other things have died away. In every business, a good name ia the greatest asset. Treachery, doubledealing, and lying bring their own reward in the long run, as do cowardice and other forms of weakness which strike at the very heart of a nation. With England's people to-day lies the responsibility of ensuring that when accounts come to be settled the balance shall be on the side of honour and clean-dealing. Meantime, before every one of us in some way or another is the business of ensuring for generations yet to come that national credit balance. Not much of a business, sonio of us may think, who dwell comfortably in sunny lands that lack not one good thing because of warnot much of a business, pitching at anchor through the blackness of raging storms in far northern seas, patrolling coasts where drifting mines mean hell's hfirrors suddenly Jet loose; not much of a business herding together 011 stifling troopships, in sodden trenches, with the pounding of cannon reverberating through tired brain, an inferno of agony and death in every well-placed shell*; not much of a game, truly, compared with three square meals a day and not-too-long between drinks, an easy job and weekly pay envelope! There are numbers of English-born who look at it just that way, content to spill the last drop of their brother's blood in England's defence. And if we all preferred to look at it that way, every son and daughter of Britain, setting ease and comfort and selfish indulgence before self-sacrifice and honour, you know the sign the whole world would be reading inside a week, don't you? No longer "Business as usual," but " British nation gone out of business. Further particulars, apply Germany!"