THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1918. STRENGTH IN UNITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16847, 11 May 1918, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1918. STRENGTH IN UNITY.

It is narrated of Lord Nelson that, overhearing some officers of his flagship engaged in a quarrel, he stepped into the group, and, pointing to the French ships -down on the horizon, said: " Gentlemen, yonder fs the enemy; we cannot afford to be at loggerheads amopgst ourselves." On Britain's ship of State to-day, with the foe at hand, such , a wise word is palpably needed. In the House of Lords, the Marquess of Lansdowne, with his penchant for treaty negotiations, has once more most inopportunely obtruded his pacificist views. That in doing so he has misrepresented facts is far less blameworthy than that he has chosen the time of a critical war situation for advocacy of a negotiated peace. Such an action is calculated to arouse bitter internal strife, and is really playing the enemy's game. In the House of Commons a serious position was precipitated by Mr. Asquith s motion for a select committee to investigate General Maurice s allegations. However seemingly innocuous the proposal was, a Prime Minister with any degree of firmness befitting his position had no option but to treat it as one of censure on the Government. The issue has vindicated Mr.- Lloyd George. But the levelling of the charge, however sincere and courageous, and the use made of it by one section of the House, however well intentioned, betoken a lack of concentration of hostilities upon the enemy. Happily, the lack is not general. The decision of the Unionist War Committee to support the Government in any division showed a clear appreciation of the position, and into the haze of the discussion the telegraphed resolution of the Woolwich Arsenal workers came like a shaft of white light. Discussion and criticism there must be. We are a nation of free men, and with our freedom to think we prize the freedom to Bpeak. But, for the common good, we must, as free men, exercise self-restraint in our utterance and value national liberty above individual license. There is a time for "His Majesty's Opposition" and the keen interchange of opposing opinions in statecraft, but that time is not now.. Our brave fellows are

enduring untold perils in Flanders, dying for the liberties that some at home lightly misuse. In the trenches, fighting under military necessity, they evince the military virtues of trusting their leaders and helping their comrades. They find no time for disuniting argument under shellfire. Nor should we. We ought to be a people, not a group of factions, at least as long as the war lasts. We cannot expect to see eye to eye in all things, but about the most pressing duty of these days we may become so finely unanimous as to forget the less urgent things of individual vision. The crisis of the struggle ought to urge us to this. Divided, we may easily be conquered ; united, we shall be invincible. If we care not for the common weal we must share the common woe. It is these things that should be laid to heart by the Lansdownes in our midst. There is a severe limit to opportune criticism, and untimely intrigue against proved leaders is a crime against the welfare of our fellows. A Sinn Fein campaign, with an enemy at the gate, is traitorous to the last degree. Pacificism and personal objection to national service are, under the stress of today's need, treacherous betrayal: they are really not negative in action, but positive aid to the foe. There is no midway choice between a loyalty to each other that sinks some individual rights ' and preferences, on the one hand, and a lawless, loveless assertion of personal wilfulness, on the other. How fatuous this disunity is! Unbridled carping at Parliamentary leaders would make leadership impossible, and so weaken fatally our resistance to a Prussian onslaught destructive of Parliament itself. Sinn Fein opposes England and as a sequel, Ireland may become a little German State, or another Ukrainewith no place for Sinn Fein. The pacificist and the objector to military service, if successful in propagating their views, would open the gate to a German military regime taking scant account of their scruples. In civilian life we need some of the discipline of the army so that we could unquestioningly trust our leaders in emergency and enable them to meet the enemy on equal terms. Democracy is not to be saved in the present crisis by maintaining its forms, but by strengthening the hands of those who are leading the fight for its preservation. There is no other alternative. Only through a union of defence against a ruthless enemy, a union that involves some sacrifice of merely personal purposes, shall we succeed. That such a unity may be fostered by the crisis on the western battlefield, and even indirectly by the manifest folly of some of to-day's misguided deeds, is a hope devoutly to be cherished.