enormously. The ordinary layman has no idea what it means to be able to handle the bricks of the house instead of just living in the house. If we could get down to these fundamentals we might find the reasons for life, and so on, and get right down to the very bottom. It is those big things that we do not know, and we shall not know all until we know the cause of life, and so forth. But that is getting too far afield; I shall come back to my subject. I would like to tell you a good deal about this expedition. I am not one of those dry-as-dust lecturers, and I do not like talking without being able to illustrate my points in a better way than my words are able to make plain. I have a wonderful lot of pictures, and my lecture is just a succession of pictures, from one end to the other, strung together to illustrate the work, so I feel that if I were to tell you much about it here I would not give you the same impression and I would waste your time. But the fundamental fact was that our expedition set out to open up new land. We were not after the South Pole; Captain Scott was out then, and we felt he was the man to do that for the British Empire, and we took a large area of unknown land where other expeditions had not landed, where only one or two spots of land had been seen away back in 1840. It was a big field; there were some who thought we might not be able to get into the land at all on account of pack ice, but it all turned out well in the long run. We landed three separate parties a thousand miles apart and they worked all the time, and the ship came down during the summer, and much mapping of the coast was done. A thousand miles have been put in and 500 miles of the coastal platform surveyed by the ship. We used wireless telegraphy for the first time, and things went off very well, but there was a great tragedy. It was nearly a year after the Scott tragedy; it was in December 1912 when it happened. Myself and two others, Lieutenant Ninnis and Dr. Mertz, when we got 311 miles out on one sledge journey, the rear sledge fell down a deep crevasse and Ninnis was killed. The crevasse was unfathomable, and we lost all our provisions. We had a struggle to get back, for there was no vegetation. The Antarctic continent is less interesting than the Arctic, because it is very barren. In the interior there is nothing but ice. On the way back there was nothing but the dogs that died of starvation, and then the rest of them went for food. It was a ghastly struggle; Dr. Mertz died a hundred miles from the hut; the dogs were all dead, and we were dragging the sledge ourselves. The last hundred miles I was done out and at the end of my tether, and it was a miracle how I got through. I dropped into a crevasse and got out again. I think Providence must have been with me from the start, because I went over the crevasse first with the sledge, and then fell down afterwards. I lived on the dogs' meat that Mertz died on, and there were many things that seem miracles; not only getting out of the crevasse where there was no help whatever, but at the last extremity coming on a cache put out by a search party. If it had been fifty yards to either side I would not have seen it. The whole thing was a miracle in its way. Let me say in conclusion that it has been a pleasure to me to have been honoured by you here to-day, and that I am particularly glad that this is an Empire Club. We are getting on pretty well in the war now. I know Canada has sent over a great number of troops, and we are sending a lot from Australia. By the way, ours are going to have a scrap very soon I think. They are in Egypt; it is a fine place in the winter, a fine place for a holiday; but these men are not there for a holiday. They have been well equipped and they are now waiting for the Turks to come over the hundred miles of desert, and see what they can do with the Suez Canal. There are a great number of British gunboats at intervals down the canal to sweep the Turks, and there are about 50,000 troops at the back of them and the Australians to give an account of themselves. I don't think the Turks are going to do much there. We are very proud of our Australian navy. (A voiceWhere is it now?") The War Office knows all about that and nobody else does. There was a question once whether we would give the money direct, or whether we would build for ourselves and make them a colonial part of the navy. There were lots of us against that idea of a colonial part of the British navy; at first I must say I was one of them, but it has turned out the opposite way. I think now, in the light of recent events, it is the right thing for Australia to have her own navy; she is more likely to take an interest in it, and more likely to give the money; and manned by Australians it develops the navy spirit there, develops men for the sea. Of course this must be at the bottom of it, that as soon as there comes a time of war such a force should be put at the supreme disposal of the Admiralty in London, as ours was. I believe in selfgovernment strongly, and say that the navy should be run by that state and put, like everything else, at the absolute disposal of the head body in time of trouble. There should be representatives in that head body from all the selfgoverning dominions, of course. When Von Spee's squadron got out of Kiao-Chow they got down close to Australia, and their intention no doubt was to make an attack on Australian shipping. They went away, and we wondered why, but it was made clear. The best of our ships was a Dreadnought cruiser and she was much more heavily armed than any of Von Spee's ships, and she could have waded right through them without being hurt at all. We just happened to have her. Until now British ships have manned the Australian station, and of course only second and third class vessels were kept there, because it was not supposed that they would ever be needed except for policing and so on. But the German ships came around, and it was because the Australian ships were there that they did not approach our shores. New Zealand adhered to the old system; there were British gunboats there and New Zealand was in a blue funk all the time. The Germans came as far as Samoa and then went back. The Australia steamed over waiting to hear of them coming near New Zealand. The British gunboats were quite inadequate there, and eventually the Japanese boats came down. Japan has been a very good ally. Australia will get the first trouble from Japan, if there is any trouble, because we do not allow any Asiatics in at all; we do not let any Europeans in if they cannot read and write their own language. It is a good thing, provided we can maintain it; I do not think it is worth fighting for, but when we have an island continent we would like to have it all of European or British descent if we can get it; and it will make such a strong country, being water-bound, that we would not be dictated to in the future, but our population is so small now that we are open to invasion of course. Another thing we have there which I strongly and thoroughly believe in-and I do not know of any argument against it is compulsory training. Optional service and compulsory training. I do not believe in a man fighting unless he thinks he should fight, either from a moral obligation to his country, or that he wants a scrap. Compulsory training is quite a different thing, and it has been a great success in Australia, and I hope to see it in Great Britain. Lord Kitchener, when visiting Australia some years ago, advocated it, and it was taken up immediately, and every boy of from twelve to twenty serves one hour a week in military training, and a fortnight a year in camp. When the men are twenty, if they are wanted to fight, they know all about the game and in a month or two they can join the colours. But it does not mean that they need to fight. A few men in a regiment, who do not want to fight, spoil the whole morale, but by all means train the young men; it is good physically, if it is good for nothing else. A vote of thanks to the speaker was moved by His Honour, Col. Hendrie, Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, and seconded by Mr. Justice Craig. [Sir Douglas Mawson also addressed 4000 children at the Massey Hall in aid of the Red Cross Fund.-Editor.] AMERICA'S GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT AN ADDRESS BY DR. J. A. MACDONALD MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,-Three hundred years ago Europe, with strained eyes, gazed westward across the unknown seas. All was waste and wilderness. To-day America looks back to Europe to the ancient homes of our peoples in Britain, in France, in Germany, in the Low Countries, in Italy, and in the Near East. What has America to show? What has Europe to learn? The two English-speaking nations of North America stand aghast at the collapse of European ideals. All the highest achievements of Europe, all the things that make for progress and freedom and justice, the work of a thousand years and the hopes of a thousand more—all have been crowded back into the melting-pot of brutal war. At its best war is barbarism. Brute force belongs to the brute stages of human development. The carnage of these months in Belgium and France and Austria and Servia and on the borders of Germany and Russia is a triumph of the savage instincts in humanity. No matter who is responsible for it, the lining up for mutual slaughter of millions upon millions of men from the foremost nations of Europe, for the alleged purpose of settling some international dispute, is a blank denial of civilisation, a crime against humanity, an apostasy from Christ. Over against that ghastly failure of Europe is presented in America the celebration of a full century of unbroken peace between the greatest Empire the world ever saw and the world's greatest Republic. This is indeed the wonder of the world: more than 400,000,000 people of all races and colours and languages, covering one-quarter of the land area of the globe, live at peace under one flag: under another flag live nearly 100,000,000 of as progressive |