May 25, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
EMPIRE HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C 
Telephone: HOLBORN 2828 
THURSDAY, MAY 25. 1916 
The Table of Contents appears on page 19 
EMPIRE DAY 
THREE years hence we shall celebrate the cente- 
nary of the birth of Queen Victoria, that august 
name of good omen, and historians will then 
doubtless tell us in detail how in this one hundred 
years the British Empire has grown from tottering 
infancy into sturdy self-reliant manhood. Mistakes 
many and great have been made, but in that we have 
always been loyal to our ideals of liberty, honour, 
humanity an! justice, and have not denied to those in 
subjection that freedom of individual action which we 
so hotly and at times even foolishly claim for ourselves, 
we have outlived the errors. The truth of the singer is 
fulfilled again in this chapter of Imperial history that 
nations as " men may rise on stepping stones of their 
dead selves to higher things." 
On the morrow of the first Empire Day to be officially 
recognised in the mother country, a Briton, be his birth- 
place betwixt the narrow seas that guard these old shores 
or under the skies of wider horizons in new lands, cannot 
fail to feel a sense of pride and satisfaction in the work 
that has been accomplished. The unity of the Empire is 
now no more a mere abstract expression, but a living 
conciete fact. In these pages a record is given of the 
help which every part of the Empire, from the greatest 
Dominion to the least remotest island over which the 
Union Jack waves, has rendered to the mother country 
in hei day of trial, and it is shown how faith in the Empire 
has been consecrated with blood, freely poured forth ; 
race, religion, custom, caste being subordinated to this 
one central idea. The British Empire has gained in this 
war an immortal soul, through the generous and lavish 
self-sacrifice of her sons. 
We have been told that " the world's altar-stairs 
,lope through darkness up to God " ; we have learned 
that they ascend also through pain. The truth, the piti- 
ful truth, appears to be that the redemption of mankind 
in small things as in great things can only be won, even 
in this twentieth century of the Christian era, through the 
torment of Calvary. It is almost as though the lights of 
heaven must be blotted out, earth swim in a sea of 
blood before man is capable of comprehending the 
nobility of his fellow-man. Yet surely it should be 
possible for humanity to make advance by some less 
sorrowful way. Our children and our children's 
children may, we hope, learn wisdom through the 
sufferings and bitterness of spirit of our present 
experiences, and will trust each other with fuller con- 
fidence than we possessed before the war. From this 
richer sympathy a more vigorous life shall spring which 
shall make the British Empire not only the stronghold of 
justice and freedom, but, as it were, a city whose citizens 
enjoy both the power and means to utilise their talents 
and develop their abilities, each and everyone, to the 
highest value possible, and are capable of self-sacrifice 
for the good of the community equally in peace as in war. 
It IS no easy achievement, but towards this end we must 
press if all the slaughter and anguish of these months is 
not to be in vain. 
Let us escape from the fetters of words and shibboleths, 
for life is action not speech. This verity has been taught 
us by war, and the lesson must never be forgotten. 
Before the Victorian centenary arrives, in every human 
probability peace wiU be restored ; by peace we imply 
the cessation of carnage and the stay of devastation. 
But let us not be deluded by the word, and dream we 
may then sink back safely and comfortably into the old 
ruts out of which we have been so cruelly flung, and soak 
our souls with the opiates of self-complacency. There is 
in truth no such thing as peace on this earth if life be 
healthy and beneficent and the progress of humanity 
maintained. Even under the most favourable circum- 
stances there must ever be struggle and fight. And it 
is an Empire well worth fighting for, _ for it is con- 
fined by no narrow conceptions ; it is too vast for 
restricting influences of class, colour and creed. Though 
tribute has to be rendered unto Caesar, that is unto the 
State, to all men is it freely permitted to render unto 
God the things that are God's ; and where Christianity 
prevails, it is judged at the last not by doctrines 
or dogmas but by practical kindliness — by giving meat 
to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to the 
stranger, and care to the sick. Those who have mocked 
us for ruling with so light a hand, and deemed it to be 
the mark of indolence and decadence, are confounded. 
But we have to take the world as it is if we would 
endeavour to make it a better world. We must organise 
the Empire in a manner hitherto undreamed of ; we have 
to sit down and consider carefully every commercia 
enterprise and make it impossible in the future that the 
channels of industry shall serve as poison-ducts for an 
enemy who is not restrained by the decencies of life, 
but has exalted treachery and the betrayal of friends 
and neighbours into a noble service to the State. Nor 
can we be deterred from this purpose by the slave-whip of 
political sophists and rhetoricians, who would herd us 
back into sloth and inaction by the flick of phrases which 
have served their purpose in the old days, when eyes were 
blind and hearts failed to understand. We show on 
other pages of this issue the manner in which the British 
Empire may be all but self-supporting. Can anyone 
honestly declare protection against the products of Ger- 
many, raised in self-defence, to be a part of Tariff Reform 
or an infringement of Free Trade if we continue to our 
gallant Allies, as we shall most certainly do, the com- 
mercial facilities which they have hitherto enjoyed. - 
There is hard work ahead for the Empire — work which 
cannot be delayed and which must be undertaken in a 
thorough and methodical manner. It implies breaking 
with the past, but does not all life since the guns first 
roared at Liege imply this ? This journal counts itself 
fortunate in that by a happy inspiration it broke off in 
August, 1914, from its former traditions and began a new 
career that synchronises with the world struggle. Since 
that day it has endeavoured to give week by week a faith- 
ful report not merely of the chief Episodes of the war, but 
of their inner significance ; and it has striven to elucidate 
the influences which these unprecedented events are 
exprting on life both within the British Empire and with- 
out. Its purpose has been to encourage the doubters 
and to stimulate the fighters, nor when mistakes have 
been made has it deemed it necessary to reprobate those 
in authority, believing that to know all would be to 
pardon much if not all. When the last shot has been 
fired and a glad silence descends on the troubled air, it 
foresees that its work will increase rather than lessen. 
The problems of the future will be at least as difficult as 
those of the present. If peace has victories as renowned 
as war, war has prosperities as affluent as peace, so there 
must needs be a complete re-settlement of the economic 
and political life of the British Empire, which will make 
heavy demands on publicists. We are no visionaries, 
thinking a new heaven and a new earth are to be created 
by scraps of paper and the pens of Plenipotentiaries, for 
we remember the wise words of a Chinese statesman, 
"There is but one Heaven ; it is approached from Earth 
by many ladders. And all the ladders are steep." 
