The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1916. BRITISH TENACITY.

Southland Times, Issue 17657, 15 February 1916, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1916. BRITISH TENACITY.

Professor Carl Binding fears that unless Germany can somehow make a breach in the ranks of the Allies and conclude agreements for peace with each separately. Germany has not much to hope for. He argues that as long as they stick together Germany will never prevail upon them to accept terms of peace reasonable from Germany's point of view, because. Britain s influence will always be exerted in favour of the continuance of the war until victory is won. Even in the event of the Allies as a body agreeing to negotiate for peace with Germany Professor Binding contends that the peace conference would he dominated hy Britain, from whom Germany would have nothing to hope for. That Britain is the most hated of all Germany s enemies we know, and Professor Binding and those who share his views merely tell ns why. The Germans hate Britain most because they fear

her most, and they fear Britain not only because of the vast resources of the Empire in men and money, but also because of the quality which is above all others British, doggedness and determination. They know that Britain will hang on in this war until it ends in her favour, and so long as the Allies sit together in council British influence and example will keep them resolute. In some respects Britain may be slow. There is no doubt that the contempt with which the Kaiser spoke of the British army twelve months ago was shared by most of Germany’s high military officers. They all knew that Britain was totally unprepared for a European war—unprepared not only in the sense that she was without the necessary equipment, but also in the sense that she did not know what that equipment was. The high military officers of Germany knew years ago that this war when it came would be a war of big guns, high explosive shells and machine guns. Britain did not find that cut until the war was some months old. Rut the Germans know quite well that there is no nation iu the world that can so quickly remedy mistakes as the British, and though the war is only eighteen months old Britain is making as many big guns as Germany, putting out as many machine guns and as much high explosive shells, and in addition she has raised an army of four million men. The German army is no better to-day as regards men and equipment than it was when the war began. The British army will soon he just as well equipped iu every respect, and the Germans know that Britain will stick at it for years, repairing every omission as it is discovered, learning from experience’ with a rapidity that is astonishing, until eventually she wins. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about Britain’s capacity to “blunder through.” Even the patriotic Briton is heard to boast sometimes with a sort of pride that “Britain makes a tremendous lot of blunders, but she generally gets there.” Britain makes less blunders than these good people suppose. The British are not a military nation, and in times of peace military affairs are of minor importance to them. But if a large, well equipped, 'well trained and well led army was necessary for the security of Britain, we may judge from the British navy what that army would be like, and as a matter of fact at the outbreak of this war the British regular army, insignificantly small in comparison to the hosts of armed men which took the field, was for its size the finest fighting force in Europe. It Inevitably happens in the case of a war like this that Britain has to do after the outbreak of hostilities, all the work of preparation which the enemy has done beforehand, and if the British were a blundering nation that work of preparation could not have : been done as it has been in the last eighteen months. The Germans know the British pretty well, and they fear them because of their unconquerable tenacity and their capacity to learn as they fight, and to apply the lessons with extraordinary speed and efficiency. They know not only that Britain can last the longest of all the Allies, but that she will last the longest, and they will plot and scheme and intrigue to make separate treaties of peace in order to get rid of England’s influence. But any calamity of that sort has been provided against. The Allies are in this war to see it through together; they are pledged to stand solidly together to the last. Neither Serbia nor Belgium, which have been conquered, will make a separate peace with Germany, much less France, Russia and Italy which have not been conquered and never will bG. “Of all Germany’s enemies Britain can last the longest,” says Professor Carl Binding, but in this war organisation, mutual help, and the pooling of resources will equalise the Allies’ resisting power and destroy Germany.