THE Daily Telegraph WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918. AMERICA’S BIG EFFORT.

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XVI, Issue 5346, 10 July 1918, Page 2

THE Daily Telegraph WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WAIHI MINER

WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918. AMERICA’S BIG EFFORT.

Here shall the Press the People's Right maintain. Unawed by influence and unhribtd by gain, Here Patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw, Pledged to Religion Liberty and Law.

Every day brings evidence of the vigour, bravery and sincerity of the Americans at the front, i he high principles for which America is fighting have been clearly pointed out in the historic speeches delivered by President Wilson, and the troops are determined to uphold t|vra. And not only at the iroiit but in the country itsell this magnificent spirit abounds. There arc pertinent lessons for Now Zealanders in the examples which America is giving of a now virtue, self-denial practised as a national duty. “One of the finest moral actions in this war,” wiitcs Mr. Harold Begbie, “ has been done by America, It is action on a gigantic scale and yet of a directly personal character. Is it realised, by the people of Britain that America has already saved us from capitulating to th ■ enemy? Either we should have been forced into this sun wider (with our armies unbroken au’d our munitions oi war unexhausted) or we should at thimoment be struggling to live, and work and fight on one-third of our present rations. America is sending to these islands almost two-thirds of our food supplies. Sixty-five per cent of the essential foodstuffs oaten by the Brito citizen comes to him from the American ( continent. This in itself is something which calls for our lively gratitude. But there is a quality in the action cl America which shoud intensify our gratitude.- For these American supplies, essential to our health and safety, represent in very large measure the personal and voluntary self-sacrifice of the individual Ameican citizen. They arc not the commandeered supplies of an autocratic Government. They represent rather, the kindly, difficult, and entirely willing sell-sacrifice of a whole nation, the vast inajority of' whom arc working pjople. MV Bcghie’s state-ment-i are borne out by relerenccs xo the matter in (Vie American pic.ss. Children at the table are taught (bat ii they take too much sugar, butter, bread and milk they a:e distinctly robbing tbe “little children saying grace in every (V'bristian kind of place” in Europe.. Children wlio were spoiled and selfish are learning the fun of doing without and giving away. Mothers who themselves were given to luxury are sotting tlie example of denial and economy to the point of asceticism. It is becoming distinctly unfashionable in America to board resources, material o r | spiritual. And the Americans are making' an even greater sacrifice than self-denial { in food. America did what Britain only 1 did alter two and a-half years of war— ! adopted conscription—and i;t was done j without a remonstrance or a riot any- J wherd lan Hay tells us that outside ! thousands of houses in Amot ica to-day ; hangs a flag—a white flag with a rej

border. Upon the white ground there are blade stars. A great banner sprinkled with two or three hundred suc.a stars, displayed outside a club or bank, proclaims that so many members or employees are absent on active service. A little pennant bearing a single St a", bung in the window of a humble dwellig in a back street in New York or a remote village in Texas, intimates proudly to the passer-by that the son of the house is away doing his duty. More than three million men have been called up—over a million arc now in Franco. They have gone into training without a murmur, and their people by this exhibition of stars show that they are proud to make the sacrifice. Nor do the Americans fiindb from the monetary sacrifice. One of their prominent speakers said the other day; “Wo will hare to travel the way of Calvary and IG’ethsemman© the same as Britain and France have done, but we know that when the-war is won by the Allies, as it i undoubtedly will bo. we in the United States will come out a supreme and consolidated nation, and that will be worth it after all.”