TOPICS OF THE DAY.

NEW YEAR RESOLVES.

"He by his wisdom delivered the city."

THIS is the time of New Year resolutions. Devoutly do 1 we wish that we had the power to dictate a resolution which should bind the best, bravest, and wisest of the nation. It would be that they would suffer all things and endure all things to keep the ship of State on her true course. They would resolve to shrink from no sacrifices, to be deterred by no specious arguments, to admit no pleas of "impossibility," to accept no substitutes for victory, but undismayed and undaunted to press on to the end. And this resolution would not be merely personal. It must include something much harder than self-sacrifice and self-abnegation. Those who make it must be prepared, not only to keep themselves in the true path, but to compel the rest of the nation to keep in it too. At a supreme moment it is far easier for the good man to sacrifice himself than to force an agony of suffering upon unwilling comrades, who are imploring to be allowed to take the easy way—to go to sleep in the snow and perish in a dream. In all great crises in the lives of States, safety comes from those who are ready and determined to keep the ship's head straight to the waves. In the darkest hour of the Civil War, Lincoln, and those who were inspired by him and willing to follow him wherever he led, forced a weaty and desponding nation to do its duty, and refused to allow the war to be ended by some weak compromise which would have left the seeds of future destruction for both North and South. "We accepted this war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will end when that object is attained. Under God, I hope it never will end until that time." Thus said Lincoln in Philadelphia, June 16th, 1864. In the New Year, it is this determination to keep the ship upon her true course, even if it be duo north and against a blizzard, that is needed above all things.

To put the ideal in homely phraseology, we want to see a body of men, throughout the length and breadth of the country, who will bind themselves to keep the nose of the nation to the grindstone. We are not thinking of physical coercion. It is not that which is needed in this case. What we are thinking of is a moral compulsion applied to the wavering, undecided, almost indifferent of all classes, rich and educated quite as much as poor and uneducated. With something very like famine at our doors ; with a minority, even though numerically a very small minority, pleading insidiously for the pleasures of peace ; with the distraction of enemy intrigue (a shadow, or at any rate a force impalpable, but all the more dangerous for that); with the foe in his last desperate plunges achieving apparent successes and showing apparent signs of a strength yet undreamt of, it is plain that in order t) win the war we shall need something beyond passive heroism or pure self-sacrifice. What was it in the retreat from Mons that made the difference between failure and success for the units in that great tragedy ? Not mere personal bravery or personal courage. All our troops had that. What saved a battalion, or a brigade, and let it emerge from the straggle unconquered and unconquerable, not a mob of brave stragglers but a living body coherent and capable of action, was the presence of officers and men not merely ready to die rather than surrender, but active and vigilant, willing and able to induce bewildered, footsore, and utterly exhausted men to keep their ranks and act together, and so maintain their power of resistance at its highest. The battalions where the officers and large sections of the men themselves showed this compelling force, this determination not only to do their duty but to see that all the other men within their reach did It also, kept the majority of our units intact. In saving them- selves they saved the Army and the world. But for this determination to keep together, never to cease striving your- self or to let others give way to the temptation not to attire, complete disaster must have overtaken the whole force. This was the spirit that saved the " contemptibles "—the spirit so nobly commemorated at the Albert Hall a fort- night ago. This is the spirit which must now be invoked at home to save the State. It is too late to think of suggesting- any organization, or any society or brotherhood, however loose, of those who are ready to pledge themselves to force the nation, if necessary upon the right path. And yet some- thing may bedone. Men need not despair- at the thought of the impotence of the isolated individual, who cannot get in touch with others who feel as he does. After allf there -is a freemasonry of good as of evil. The most vicious and most

depraved of men are said to discover each other instinctively, to flock together by a natural attraction. The same is true of the good.

Let us at any rate ask the readers of the Spectator, who, after all, are no mean band, and who it would be an affecta- tion to pretend do not include the better portion of the thinking part of the British people, to make the New Year resolution of which we have spoken, and especially to remember that their own good deeds and good intentions are not enough. They must be active, not passive; they must not only want the ship to keep her course and be ready to die in that endeavour, but must also do their part in forcing others to do their duty. But above all things let them remember that we are dealing with no abstractions, with no rhetorical, imaginary, unreal situation. The need may be upon us before many nionths, possibly before many weeks are out, in the clearest and most concrete form. We are whole-hearted believers in demo- cracy. We not only know that the will of the majority must prevail, but hold that it is right that it should prevail. But one of the dangers, indeed the great danger, of democracy is that it may be so easily stampeded. There is no sovereign in whose name men more impudently and falsely profess to speak without true warrant. Again, there is no sovereign to whose merest whisper the sycophants of the world are more willing to bend their ears. The politician, who has trained himself to anticipate the least and latest wishes of his lord and master, is strangely apt to mistake his orders. When the majority is silent, he is shamefully eager to accept as an authentic order what is in reality no more than the shrill and illicit mandate of a strutting minority.

To be explicit, the danger weave thinking of is this. Suppose the pinch of privation at home becomes, as we believe it will, much worse than any one has thought possible, and that at the same time there are temporary setbacks abroad. If that happens, though the heart of the nation may be sound, as we are sure it will be, there will be groans of agony, a tempestuous restlessness, and possibly even for a moment a delirium in the body politic—cries and demands that the sufferer be put out of his misery, and his sufferings ended anyhow or somehow, which will deceive the politicians. In such circumstances it is quite possible that the more light-minded among them will say, and very likely will honestly think, that the nation is clearly not willing to go through with it, that It cannot stand the strain any longer, that the people are utterly war-weary, and that it is no use to urge them, or to try to compel them, to further exertions and further sacrifices. "The thing is finished," will be the cry. "We can get no more out of them. We- had better secure the best terms we can, and make the best of a bad job." Then will come the further temptation of the politician. Deep down in his heart, even if he does not confess it to himself, will be the feeling : "The nation is going to be grateful to those who run the risk of telling them that there is no help for it, and that they must throw up the sponge. Therefore let me be the first in the field to bring them consolation, even the consolation of despair." When once the politicians have reached this mood, they will contrive ways to stampede the nation into a peace, not perhaps a peace at any price, but a peace on the best terms obtainable, a peace which will look fairly well on paper. Before the nation is really awake to what is being done in its name, its groans, and, as we have said, its temporary delirium, will have been taken for a positive order, and it will have been committed to the very thing which at heart it most detests—an ignominious and therefore a useless peace, which would be only a postponement of the old war, or, if you will, a preparation for a new one. It is in moments such as this, moments which recurred three or four times in the last year of the American Civil War, that men who have made the resolution • which we so earnestly desire to see made can not merely serve, but literally save, the State. If only there are enough of them, and they have the courage of their opinions, all will be well. They must stand dauntless 'at the bridge-head, even if at the monfent they seem only three men against a host, and insist that the nation shall not be stampeded into a peace which it does not really desire, merely because the politicians have not the steadfast- ness to endure what will no doubt be agonizing enough—the groans and restlessness of those who suffer. If a surgeon seems not to have enough moral or physical courage to do his duty by his patient, he must either be made to do it, or the .ife must be taken from his nerveless and incom- petent hands and given to another.

To the weak and pessimistic all this will seem the mere mirage of those who-wander in a desert. But believe-us, it is not so. If the situation arises, those who are now inclined to indulge in the belief that you cannot stem a torrent by will-power will find themselves strangely mistaken. In conditions such as we have pictured, if a sufficient nember of men make themselves heard, and rally to the cry of "No surrender I " for themselves, and to the fuller cry of "None 'Mall be allowed to surrender, or even to utter the word " they will be surprised at the result. What will seem to them a miracle will have happened. Those who but a moment before appeared beaten, benumbed, and ready to accept the fruits of disaster will turn into brave and determined men, and will show that they only needed the stimulus of a direct command to keep them to their duty. We have taken one illustration from the present war. We may take another. Some time ago—ft is an old story now—the following scene was witnessed during a temporarily suc- cesodul counter-attack by our enemies. An officer pro- ceeding to the place of trouble saw to his amazement a loose, far-stretching crowd of our soldiers, in broken order and without any proper preservation of units, slowly walking tewrirds him and away from the enemy. Behind them, apparently almost as much surprised and befogged as our own men, came a somewhat hesitating and cautious force of the enemy. There were no signs of panic, or even of great hurry, amongst the British soldiers. They were merely walking in the wrong direction and not putting up any sort of fight. They had been surprised, or, if you will, stampeded, into a sudden and wholly unnecessary retreat. One section had given way, and this had been spasmodically and unreason- ably interpreted as a sign that the line was being withdrawn. In the confusion people who ought to have known better had forgotten to wait for real orders, but had acquiesced in this " advance to the rear." "Everybody's doing it" appeared to be the order of the day. For the moment, it was of course not for very long, the supreme duty was to remind the men sharply by words and deeds that they were facing in the wrong direction, to force them, not only to turn and defend themselves, but to attack vigorously the enemy who were following them. Very soon a body of troops in reserve, and under proper leadership, came to the moral rescue of the military saunterers and loafers. They made the incoherent crowd turn round, and very soon the men who had been playing a part so strange for British troops, that of local and temporary Pacifieists and non-resisters, were fighting as bravely as ever. They only needed a stern reminder, and to be compelled to do a duty which they were in reality glad enough and willing enough to perform. They had simply yielded to a momentary impulse to do the easy thing and the foolish thing, rather than the arduous thing and the wiae thing. Had their leaders acquiesced, there would have been a dire disaster. As it was, their leaders saved them :— " Oh ! they will break, like yielding air,

And who phall blame them then Not so—through that bewildered throng Like fire the leaders glance along From rank to rank ; too far to hear, We seem to feel an English cheer, Whilst Fancy, from each blade waved high, Each gesture fierce and flashing eye,

Can proud words, such as these, supply,

'Gather ye, gather ye, close up once more ! Swords red to wristband, hearts steel to the core, Lames sabre and carbine, dragoon and Cossack, Are strong to the sight, but thoy dare not attack ;

No cutting, give point, were they twenty to ono!

Men who wait to be charged, when we gallop, will run!

Once more, let none of those men and women to whom we appeal to form the resolution to keep the country on its true course quail at the thought of their own apparent im- potence, or ask how can so puny a force move so vast a mass. They must remember that with a fulcrum so strong as is our cause, one man of faith and high endeavour might move the globe itself :—

"Solomon," said Swift in one of his sermons, "tells us of a poor wise man who saved a city by his counsel.. It bath often happened that a private soldier, by. some unexpected brave attempt, bath been instrumental in obtainm,g a great victory. Whoever is him:ad with a true public spirit, God will certainly pet it into his way to make use of that blessing for the ends it was given him, by some means or other. And therefore it bath been observed in most ages, that the greatest actions for the benefit of the common- wealth, have been performed by the wisdom or courage, the con- trivance or industry, of particular MOn, and not of numbers ; and that the safety of a kingdom bath piton been owing to those hands from whence it was least expected."

Let each of us resolve for the New Year to play, if neces- sary, the part of the poor wise man, and deliver the city.

• Swift's text h Pneleabutes 1x, 14, 15, which tell, of the siege of a My, "There came a Feat king agahnt It, and besieged It, and built great bulwarki agelmit

it non there was In It • poor wt. man, and he by his wisdom delivered the tity.••