THE EMPIRE TRUST.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7920, 18 August 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE EMPIRE TRUST.

EVERY BRITON A SHAREHOLDER IN THE GREAT “COMBINE” TO SQUEEZE OUT THE HUN.

A TALK TO THE BOYS By HAKKY LAUDER.

You know what a Trust is! It is sometimes a very uncomfortable thing. It squeezes out the little man, it corners Supplies, it makes huge profits at the expense of the consumer. It is so big and so powerful that the common man distrusts it. And often the common, man is right. And yet when today we that the British Empire is one great Trust we are praising it. Nobody doubts that a Trust is a gooa fighting organisation—the pity is that it is engaged in civil war. But now we are all banded together in one greav organisation to squeeze out the Hun, to corner supplies for the benefit of ourselves and our Allies, to make huge profits at the expense of the enemy. At present tlie profits’ are mainly expressed in terms of enemy casualties, positions gained, the taking of prisoners and guns. From the front awa.y back* to Blighty, {the ©’eat foombine works with miraculous smoothness; all along the line the great machine strikes, and moves forward, and strikes with the inevitability of an 'avalanche. A MUSHROOM GROWTH. In that marvellous fighting-machine wo all put out trust. We are still dazzled and baffled biy the swiftness of its' creation. Only yesterday, it seems, Britain was a naval power with a small professional army. To-day, she is a navy and' an- army. In August, 1914, we still thought this would be for us a naval war, with a small expeditionary force to represent us among the French armies on the Western front. And now our gigantic armies stretch farther and farther along the line; and against them is massed tihe main strength of the Hun. Wo have grown in a night, like a mushroom—a mushroom cased in steel. How has it happened? How is it possible that all these civilians —clerks, artisans', professional men, miners, aristocrats, farmers, labourers should have suddenly become the best-trained as well as the bravest soldiers in the world? Men of the Dominions, listed to an open-air life, are there; hut there, too, are “pale-faced lsedenta'r,v-work-ers” with backs like rain-rods and faces of bronze. How have you done it, boys? MY VISIT TO THE FRONT. When I stand among you, as I hope to do before many of you read this article, I shall not ask that question, for 1 L'hall read tho answer in tlie spirit that blazes in your eyes. If 1 ask you, you would probably answer, witli a growl, that you didn’t know —it hadn’t come out in battalion orders yet. You are built that way. Heretics are not your style. You d!o you* daily duJr-7 and you have your daily “grouse” (which is not a bird within the meaning of the Act). You endure as much .as mortal man can endure; you outdo all the dloeds that. Hector did and Baron Munchausen (an early German journalist) dreamed about; and then light up the eternal • fag,” and utter vain things about tho sergeant-major. But perhaps you will allow me to praise your officers and your guns. Let* us start with the guns. At the beginning we had hardly aniy guns worth talking about. In those first terrible months it was British hone and muscle against German iron. Again -and l again you had to be thrown, almost without help from out artillery, against tlie German guns. It was magnificent, but it was murder. How you managed to keep your end up God only knows. THICK AS SUMMER FLIES. And now! Not only are tho British guild, with limitless supplies of shells, thick as summer flies from the ocean to the French, but every gunner is a master-man, and every aitilleiiv officer is an expert. Everywhere we overpower the enemy’s fire. And now the poor Hun who once gloried in the ruthless strength of his metal wails bitterly about our murderous bombardment. Ad for tlie French, those glorious gunners, they marvel no less. “We always knew the British wore brave,” they say; “hut how is it possible that in a day and a night thqv should have mastered a science we have given all tho years of our life to learn ?” British heavies helped in defence of Verdun. At this moment British guns are thundering on the Italian front. The French say tlie same of our officers. It takes years to train a French officer. When war broke out our stock of men trained for command was naturally small. Naturally we had to give many men commissions/ before they were competent. Besides, as our army grew, it and its commanders had to find cut what modern .warfare was like. How splendid.lv they have learnt their lesson! In the past there have been mistakes, we are told, but those mistakes have been all wiped out in glory. To-day the plans of our general .staff almost never go wropg. A SUBALTERN’S WAR. As for the subaltern (and this is a subaltern’s war), it would take volumes to tell of the great deeds done by young fellows iwho a year or to ago knew no more of soldiering than a politician. Well, there you are, boys! soldier and officer, infantry, cavalry, and artilleiF, an incomparable fighting force, the glory of our Empire and the pride of our Allies! And you know what you are there ' to do! You are there to beat the Hun. You have no illusions, you do not think we can make sudden peace with the Hun, and trust him not to use his claws again. You know he must he beaten and broken beyond repair. You have pledged your word to do the job, and we know we can trust you to do itWell, we, too, have, pledged cut words to the Great Trust. You have put your lives into the business, and we have put our honour. We are going to see you through; there will be no shortage of shells and guns, there will bo no shortage of fresh men, there

of the Holy Empire from 1437 to 1806. Both William TL and Archduke Francis Ferdinand nre said to have dreamed of i.eing crowned one day in Rome with the crown of Charlemagne, which to this day is jealously guarded in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna. Both are

said to have promised to the Popo for his service as Crown-Marshal the rcL establishment of the temporal power. . More tli.au once in, his sleepless nights the spirit of Marie Theresa and liisi other Imperial ancestors may have appeared to Charles I. with the anxious question on their bloodless lips: Quo Vadis?