LORD ROBERTS.

Southland Times, Issue 17770, 1 October 1914, Page 4

LORD ROBERTS.

Very appropriate reference was made in the Legislative Council yesterday to Lord Roberts’s birthday. The veteran Field-Marshal is not ouly Colonel - in-Chie£ commanding the New Zealanders on active service, hut he is also the first of living soldiers, and though Lord Kitchener is in supreme control wc may be sure that he and Lord Roberts spend many hours in consultation and discussion. If Lord Kitchener is the master organiser of the British Army, Lord Roberts is the master strategist. Probably it is not too much to say

that he Is the first strategist in Europe, and we run little risk of error in saying that so far as the British Staff has a voice in the Allies' strategy, which must, of course, he decided in the last resort by General Joffre, it is the puce of lord Roberts that speaks. Furthermore Lord Roberts has spent his later years, which, after an unusually crowded and eventful life, he might excusably have spent in ease, in a strenuous effort to awaken Great Britain to the necessity of making military training compulsory. The country now realises how sound his advice and admonition were. It is true that 1,-ord Kitchener's great armies will he raised successfully by "calling for volunteers. There is no lack of patriotism among the British people, and when the emergency arises millions of men are ready to take up arms for their country. But, the defect of the policy is that all the training has to he done after the outbreak of war. Kitchener's armies have to he trained and cQuipped by strenuous exertions, and if the next army is ready in six months the achievement will he remarkable. With universal military service Britain would have had a million men under Sir .lohn French now, and it is impossible to doubt that with a force so large the Allies’ offensive w'ould be irresistible. The preparation of armies after hostilities have begun means that the war is protracted, and its sufferings and losses increased. A fine, virile personality is that of Lord Roberts, and be has earned by a lifetime of service the place he holds in the esteem of all Britons and in the affections of all’British soldiers. In the birthday greetings conveyed to him by Parliament (iic whole dominion will join.