NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19966, 7 June 1928, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ENGLAND'S WAR EFFORT. Lord Birkenhead, Secretary of State for India, presided at the festival dinner of the Royal Society of St. George, in London, on St. George's Day, and in proposing the toast of "England, he said the very battle-cry which carried Richard of the Lion Heart into battle upon the plains of Palestine—"St. George for England"—Was the same battle-cry which carried the incomparable forces of England and the British Empire to the assault at Zeebrugge. Referring to (he British Empire's part in the Great War, he said it was worth remembering that we sustained the whole cost of the Allied warfare, that without our financial support that cause never could have been sustained, and that we never thought of money so long as the war lasted. As to the actual contribution made in manpower to that heroic struggle, he bad sometimes thought that England had suffered somewhat from the anxious desire which animated those in it to pay gi nerous tribute to those who from the neighbouring islet, or from far-away countries chose to associate themselves wit i the country in its most desperate moments. England during the course of the war had produced 4,921,000 soldiers, or 80 per cent, of those engaged; Scotland had supplied 677,000, or 11 per cent.; Wales, 315,000, or 5 per cent; and Ireland, 181,000, or 3 per cent. Eighty-two per cent, of all tlie Empire's casualties were Englishmen. Those figures were imperfectly understood. He did not cite them in disDaragement of the great martial qualities of the Scots, the Welsh, or those who from overseas came to England's assistance; but that night their special purpose was to make it plain what England iid and to feel special pride in the fact that they were English.

A WOMAN PIONEER, A service was held in Westminster Abbey in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Josephine Butler, who was one of the most notable women of the past century. Of all the illustrious women whom the Victorian age in England produced, she probably touched, and in retrospect stjll touches, tho national life at the greatest number of points, says tho Times. It is, in fact, given to very few, whether men or women, to radiate an influence so widely. Co-operation for common social or educational ends is more or less the rulo among enlightened persons to-day, but it was the exception 60 years ago, so hard and fast were traditional distinctions; and for a woman to take the lead, even after Miss Nightingale's grand example, was itself to invito prejudiced antagonism. As the friend of all women who would advance their sex, and through its advancement raise standards in many departments of life, Mrs. Butler held a unique position. Her principles were simple, but fundamental. She held that nothing that would bo beneficial to women could possibly be harmful to men; and she had the clearest conception of the nature of moral and civil liberty Added to this intellectual creed, which might have been barren if it had been allowed to stop short at theory, she had all a woman's regard for the actual and the particular, and from a charity which overflowed with compassion toward the individual she drew her greatest strength for the campaign she led against a great social injustice. To those who read today the story of her agitation for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, the violence of the opposition she aroused, the bodily dangers which she faced, and the obloquy of which she was the target are little short of astounding; but the forces of ignorance, convention, ill-thought-out morality, and mistaken professional policy were colossal. The spirit of the age, as events proved, was really with her, so much so that when she died in 1906 an enormous change had come about in tho acknowledged discrediting and abandonment in most civilised countries of the, iniquities which she attacked.