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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 288, 9 January 1915, Page 11

The news brought by the missionary steamer John Williams of the contributions to the Patriotic Fund and of the offers of volunteers in the Gilbert and Blliee Islands ought to be good reading for the Kaiser (says the Sydney "Daily Telegraph"). Far off on these bits of atolls, already devastated by a hurricane, the payments in relation to the population were not only handsome but extraordinary. In one minute island over 200 of the inhabitants offered themselves for the front and gave 'is well £IBO. When it is remembered that these contributions are the spontaneous offerings of a distant outpost of the Empire, and not a forced levy by external authority, one can realise how strong and deep and far-reaching is the= sense of Imperial patriotism. So detached were the islanders from the centre of British power that they heard of the war only when the John Williams made its call. Yet the sentiment of a common purpose, the recognition that the Imperial cause is one which affects all its parts, is no less sound in thi lonely islets of the Pacific, where the British flag lies, than it is in the heart of the world's metropolis. Australia might take an example from the Gilberts.