THE EDITORIAL MESSAGE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14711, 17 September 1918, Page 8

THE EDITORIAL MESSAGE.

'CARRY OX ! ALL WILL BE WELL."

"UNTO US IS TO BE THE

VICTORY."

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night,. The following message has been re ceived from Mr Fred, Pirnni, one of the press delegates visiting I'ritnin at the ' invitation of the Imperial authorities : —

LONDON, Sept. 13. The editorial mission returned to London to-day nfter an extensive tour of Franco and Flanders. The New Zealand delegates, and indeed the whole party of overseas editors, have been greatly imfiressed by what they have been Y>rivieged to see and lea>m on and behind the historic Western front.'" We liave seen the great war maohine working at high pressure — a marvel of stupendous and complicated organisation, running with seemingly miraculous smoothness and precision. We have seen our splendid men at work, talked with them about their experiences, listened with dplight to their eagerly-told tales of some other fellow's dauntless valor. Never by any chance do they enthuse about what they themselves have done. We discovered renewed inspiration m their cheerful optimism. Here and there, m the privacy of the mess rooni or billet, one heard- whispers of sins of omission and commission, stories of somebody's alleged blunders : but \these are matters which, if they do npt lack foundation m fact, must be lejtt to be "washed: up" after the war. Meantime, they are but incidents, more or less inevitable happenings m the. worldredeeming enterprise to which we have set onr hands.

When we left New Zealand the • Hun j Avas shaking his. mailed fist at a threatened Paris, and makiiig the world gasp, lest by his prodigal onslaught he should wrest the long-coveted channel ports from the heroic defenders. The spring carnival" of slaughter was m- -full 'swing and the issue was still m doubt. What has happened m the interim you In m New Zealand know. Our 'gallant troops have sprung from the defensive to the offensive. They have swept back the Huns mid are still pushing forward, 'thousands upon thousands of prisoners are caged behind the Allied lines and testify to tlie success of their heroic operations. Paris the beautiful is still the undisturbed- capital '' of -La Belle Trancre, and the -Channel ports ptill fly Vhe Allied flags. America h?is continued to make "ood, Britannia still rules the waves, and the end, though not yet, is j nearer than — : . But there. I am neitlier a, prophet nor the son of a oroph-et. This, though, I can say, for it is writ large on all we have seen.: "Unto us is to be the victory !" Everywhere m the base camps, m the billets behind the lines, jn the battered and bloodstained trenches, on" the crowded roads — everywhere amidst this welter of blood and pain, aye, even m the hospitals on the wan, drawn faces of the battletorn heroes, it is written: "Unto us is to be the victory!" Why, because the salvation of humanity and the preservation of democracy demands it* because Right must prevail over Might; because, despite all our national sins and shortcomings, we are m tins fighting on the <udo of God. and under his Almighty captaincy, defeat is unthinkable. .No man could walk over the ground'- hair lowed by the lifeblood of so many of our dearest kin folk without . being tottehed by the overwhelming sadness of it all.

War from near at hand looks- so terribly different. Tt is frightful, - j.t •is ghastly. Yet it is wonderfully .a-nd awfully grand. Tt calls to the imagination the pohl-stirring harmony • of the Dead March as it might be played by a thousand might}' bands followed by the Glory Song, as sung by all the sons of men m unison with, the countless j choirs of heaven. That is why wo odi* tors have come back from the Western front with the Song of Victory on. our lips. We have been where things petty and little pale into insignificance; where only tlie one big thing counts; where the brotherhood of man welded m the furnace of pain and suffering finds its fullest and truest expression, and where | iii" the inscrutable wisdom of the Omnipotent there is being worked but a new and better order of things. Our message to you all is : — • . "Carry on ! All will he well !"