THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1918. "YOU CANNOT HALF-WAGE A WAR."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17322, 23 May 1918, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1918. "YOU CANNOT HALF-WAGE A WAR."

The war-cloud that broods over the earth was never, perhaps, deeper since August, 1914, than it is at the present time. Few rays of light are penetrating its darkness. Yet, great issues stand more clearly than ever in the balance. Preparation and effort on both sides have reached their climax, and a fierce succession of shocks and counter-shocks must be expected before the situation undergoes material change. Patience and energy, steadfastness and resolution on the part of Great Britain and her Allies, were never more in demand. The enemy is taking the initiative, and staking everything on the attempt to force a decision. After he has shot his bolt and failed—as we are confident he will fail—the task of the Allies will wear a more simplified aspect. In the meantime the will of Great Britain to victory must reveal itself at its very high-water mark. The words of President Wilson, " We must win the war and win it greatly," express succinctly the aim of the Allies towards the achievement of which they are animated by a driving force which is born of considerations of irresistible import. A speech delivered a few weeks ago by Mr Lloyd George at the City Temple, on the occasion of the annual assembly of the National Free Church Council, struck an admirable note. It is the duty of the Imperial Government to lead the nation and to direct its energies in this great emergency. But the very vastness of its present responsibilities, the multifarious avenues of its administrative activities, necessarily expose it greatly to the shafts of those who are content to sit comfortably in judgment. Carping criticism at a time when unity of national effort is urgently needed is comparable to a noxious weed. In his City Temple speech the Prime Minister spoke with emphasis of the practical difficulties with which Governments have to deal. " When there is criticism," he declared, "when there is suggestion, when there is pressure, you do not help things along when you do not recognise the achievements and the progress made. Criticism which is nothing but criticism does not help: and we want help as well as criticism." 'While affirming that the Government expected and welcomed pressure from the churches, as it assisted it to solve practical difficulties and remedy glaring evils, Mr Lloyd George took the opportunity to impress strongly upon the churches the character of their special tasks in this war. It was their part, he reminded them, to preserve the nation from everything unworthy of the great cause for which it was fighting. The churches had not merely a right, lie declared, but it was their special task, to see that the moral and physical fibre of the nation was not undermined by drink and vice. Government action, said the Prime Minister, had reduced the consumption of liquor in Great Britain to ofte-third of what is was before the war; but it remained the function of the churches to keep the nation up to the level of the high purpose with which it entered the struggle. "Keep the war to the end, whenever God wills that it shall end, a holy war"—these words more than any others constituted, perhaps, the keynote of a vigorous speech. Mr Lloyd George enumerated briefly once again the war aims of the Allies—

The vindication of international ri rr ht tho restoration of conquered and trodden countries, the freeing of oppressed populations. whether in Europe, in Africa or in Asia, from the thraldom of alien despots, and above a'l, making sure that war shall henceforth be treated as a crime punishable by the law of nations. As society is banded together for the punishment of oppression, murder, theft, fraud and all kinds of wrong and injustice inflicted by one individual upon another, so shall bo banded together for the protection of each other and tho world as a whole against tho force, the fraud and the greed of the mighy. To falter ere all this be achieved would be to doubt the justice of tho Ruler of tho world: to carry the war on a single hour after these aims could be attained would be to abandon tho world to the spirit of evil. Germany, according to the Kaiser's profession, not only approves of the scheme for a League of Nations, but is prepared to place herself at the head of this organisation. It is the intention of the Allies that it will be in a new spirit of humility that she shall seek permission to enter its fraternity. But the League of Nations is an after-war project. TVhen Mr Lloyd George was urging the Free Churches to use all their influence to sustain the heart of a great people, to enable it to carry through to a triumphant end the greatest task Providence had ever yet entrusted to its hands, the German offensive on the west front had not yet beerr launched. Since then the situation has intensified immeasurably the force of all his appeals for national unity ana co-ordination of effort. Great Britain the Empire, and all its Allies must continue to realise more and more fully, till the end is in sight, the truth and all the implication of the phrase drawn by Mr Lloyd George from a Cromwellian maxim: "You cannot half-wage a war. You must give the whole of your strength to it, or prosecute it not at all."