TALL SHOOTING.

Observer, Volume XXXVI, Issue 49, 12 August 1916, Page 3

TALL SHOOTING.

Winning the War

WHEN the chairman of the Ngatimatokohe Creamery, in the presence of the whole thirtyfive suppliers., ascends the platform in the local hall, and says, "We will never sheath the sword until the Kaiser is in St. Helena and the criminal nation is brought low," not a single Austrian or German falls dead. Even when Patumahoe decides that it will not give Germany back a single one of its colonies, or 'Cambridge declares that Mr Asquith has the verbal support of several of its citizens, nothing really happens. No resolution moved by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and supported by even the most illustrious of New Zealand mayors, has caused any of the Czar's legions to push harder than they were pushing before, or helped Joffre in the biggest task a soldier ever had, or given the British new armies a single extra bomb, a new bayonet or a clip of cartridges. When you see war anniversary headlines in the newspapers, "Determination to Win," in allusion to Auckland, you don't laugh, although it is funny enough for tears. When "On this, the second anniversary of the declaration of a righteous war, this meetof the citizens of Auckland records its inflexible determination to continue to a victorious end the struggle in the maintenance of those ideals of liberty and justice which are the common and sacred cause of the Allies." You imagine a whole •city awned. You have to be content, however, with a meeting of citizens saying "Aye!" to a motion invented by a gentleman who doesn't fight.

The "inflexible determination" of the people of Auckland to win the war is as useful as a burst bicycle tyre without, the armies of the Allies, and although it may flatter our vanity to inflexibly determine a course for many millions of British .and foreign soldiers, the said soldiers don't move motions about it •or throw themselves about on safe public platforms—they just do it. No doubt, in the far future, when the Allies decide that, the German colonies are to be cut up among the Allies, Patumahoe will congratulate several kings and a few armies on taking the advice of Patumahoe, while final victory will justify Auckland in having passed its "inflexible determination" motion. The real inflexible determination industry is only carried on. at the front, and no soldier worries himself about German colonies or German trade or anything else but killing Germans. The inflexible determination industry has branches in every British town where men, women and children don't pass resolutions biit pass out shells. The inflexible determination industry is being carried on in France,

where aged men and women till the "•round under shell fire, and shopkeepers, instead of getting cheap platform advertisements, carry on business in battered towns, and hand out their wares through shell holes in the wall.

The inflexible determination industry can only be really inflexible by physical fighting. In Auckland, and elsewhere, in New Zealand, the maimed soldier is now a commonplace. Few people take the least notice of him. He is a man of deeds. If a citizen, were to stand on the sidewalk and cheer a soldier with one leg or one eye. or one arm, the populace would think him mad, but a whole lot of perfectly secure citizens will cheer an "inflexible determination" piece of tw.addle to tlie echo. Citizens can't win the war, money can't win the. Avar, resolutions can win the war. Sailors and soldiers and all who physically help sailors and soldiers can and will win the war. One sound recruit sent forward to kill Germans is better Imperialism than the most fervid of speeches. The advice of borough councils and creameries and road boards about the punishment of the murderers of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt is grotesque. It is a matter for the Allies governments, the Allies admirals and the Allies generals. You get the road 1 board point of view in the cables, "The Australasians—and the New British Armies." In the same, way you get "Patumahoe—and the British Cabinet," "Cambridge—and the Admiralty," "Auckland —and the. Allied Armies." New Zealand matters this much: New Zealand has supplied 60,000 excellent men, New Zealand has supplied, at a larger price than she ever received before, food for soldiers and clothes for soldiers. Apart from this, nothing else matters.

Imagine, for instance, a perfectly peaceful little man who is backing the ' 'Ponsonby Pet to win the championship in the ring. He has never struck a blow in his life, but when the Pet is in the ring, the perfectly peaceful man gets up by the ropes, and screams, "Gentlemen.! It is my inflexible determination to win this fight!" The crowd would howl with merriment. But .when a perfectly peaceful mayor makes a perfectly peaceful crowd say it is inflexibly determined to win a war that countless millions of men are fighting it is bizarre, grotesque and distortedly humorous. We ought to be profoundly grateful that our own men have been permitted the honour of striking a blow for our own salvation. The point of view for us is that without our men, without our food, without our money, the Allies would fight this, war with precisely the same inflexible determination which we civilians claim. We have to understand that even tlie withdrawal of the Allies Avould' not kill the inflexible determination of the British Navy and the British Army to fight to the last ship and the last gun and the last man. Only an inflexible determination to work for sailors and soldiers is of any service, and even the National Anthem sung at the top of 5000 voices doesn't take a single metre of trenches or fill a single shell or slay a single German. Slaying Germans is all that matters.