Imperial Bond

Waikato Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1742, 20 April 1916, Page 5

Imperial Bond

MR. BONAR LAW AND THE COLONIES’ RALLY.

REACH WITH VICTORY

Mr Bonar Law, Secretary of Wtate for the Colonies, recently performed the official ceremony of opening the Ontario Military,Hospital at Orpington, Kent. Colonel the Hon. R. A. Tyne, the Ontario Minister of Education, was in the chair.

Mr. Bonar Law, who was cordially received by a large audience in the Recreation Room, said he came there as Secretary for the Colonies and as specially interested in the call of any of his Majesty’s Dominions, but he had another kind of claim to be interested in that hospital. A man could not have lived, as he did, for 12 years In the Dominion without having a very warm feeling towards everything connected with that country. Their enemies were regarded by many as a kind of supermen who made no mistakes. He thought that was a mistake (hear, hear). Not Weakness, but Strength.

They had had many surprises in this war, but none greater than their discovery of the part wdiich the groat Dominions of the British Crown were going to play in a war which the Germans had wantonly provoked (cheers). Their enemies had looked upon these Dominions as the weakness of the Mother Country, but they knew' better now (cheers). When speaking of the loyalty of the Colonies let them not make any mistake; it was not more loyalty of Canada to the United Kingdom than it was loyalty of the United Kingdom to Canada. It Avas a part, as much as the United Kingdom itself. Among the many tragedies of this war there was nothing which stood out as a bright picture so clearly as the part which the Avhole Empire had taken in this struggle. There had been cooperation of thought—that hospital w'as a proof of it. It was started and paid for by the Ontario Government. But it Avas not merely the Avork of Ontario. The Canadian Government as a Avhole was helping, and he was glad to knoAv this, that the hospital Avas intended not only for Canadian soldiers, buffer soldiers from every part of the Empire engaged in the great struggle which is now taking place (cheers). Peace With Victory. After all, it Avas what that hospital stood for that brought home to them the reality of Avar. He did not suppose there Avas a man or Avomau avlio did not, as he did, hate war—hate Avhat it meant —and avlio did not long that they might have peace. They prayed for that hut they prayed also that all the blood and treasure Avhich had already been spent, and Avhich would be spent before they had done, might not be spent in vain, and that as the result of this struggle they might not only have peace now, but might ho certain that never again in their time, or in the time of their children, would it be in the power of a single man, or group of men, to plunge the world into the misery which existed to-day (lour! cheers).