The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-01-18

Hon. Crawford Vaughan, ex-qre- mier of Australia, said at the Ma tional Security League meeting at Cooper Union last night, talking on the topic, 'TIabor's Interest in the War:
 'I was proud as a labor leader in Australia to accept the invitation of the government of the United States to place before the American audi ences a view of Australia's position in the war
 -'Our young democracy owes so much to this older democracy of America that there has always existed 0 oeiing of fraternal affection for this great republic. We in the self-gov- 0Tntng dominions of the British Elm rare owe the right of governing our selves to the heroic struggles for free dom made by Washington and the valiant men of Valley Forge. Wash ington builded better. than he knew for not only did he rather establish the American republic on the endur- Z ing rock of principle, but he reshaped the destiny and the constitution of the British Empire. The lesson of Bunker Hill sealed in the minds of the British statesmen the ineradica- Z. ble impression that an empire could be held together on bonds of freedom I but never of force.
 4 "The result, or rather the fruit of < Washington's struggles for liberty 4 was gathered when at the outbreak of war every part of the far-fung do- 7. mfrtons of Britain rallied under the 7 Union Jack in phalanx that stands ! four-square to all the winds that blew
 'sThe centraIizing policy against which Washington fought is the policy { which the Kaiser would enforce upon the world today. George the Third owed his ideas, as he owed the bulk 1 of his troops, to Hanover, Germany and this great country is now asked ywhether this principle for which theil sforefathers struggled Is worth main tatnfng at this hour.
 ''The German policy has at least tht ss1nertt of consistency, for just as Fred erfciz the Great tore up his treaty with Austria and said treaties were mere fiIligree, pretty to look upon ebut to be broken when required, SC William HohenzoIlern tore up hif treaty with Belgium as mere scraI of paper and plunged, as Frederick did, peaceful world into g. bloody sshambles.
 'iAustralia. at the outbreak of hos ti1ities was under no compulsion tC assist Britain and it was in the affec. ton which we owed to the gray olt s>1,setAerRand in. the North Sea whicl Drought US into this titanic conftic and the fact that the integrity of Bel 'Agium was threatened by brutal mil --itary autocracy.
 ''Belgium's acceptance of the chal lenge of the gang of German cut throats saved civilization and save freedom for us and for you.
 ''We Australians felt that enjoying liberty as we did through the effor -of your forefathers, we owed it t Belgium to draw the sword and stan by her and not sheathe that swor until she had been freed forever o Prussian fnilitarism. Australia ha relied up to the present upon the vol untary system which, while it work unfairly and undemocratica1ly, ha nevertheless enabled us to contrfbut out of a population of five millions ( people, 360,0O0 men to the front up Juno last. These soldiers are the bet paid in the firing line and AustraI feels that bill. We have contribute five hundred million dollars to tt liberty Loans and have raised man iguns for the relief of Servians, Be gians, Russians and other distresse victims of Potsdam brutality. But I country which has been kept mmun as has Australia from the worst an most devastating facts of war, ca regard its contributions as adequat
 when compared with the terrible COT ArFbutions which lands like Franc Belgium, Servia, Ruumania and 1ta, and Great Britain have had to maI in order that the world might be ma( safe for democracy.
 '-Germany, it must be remembere
 afned for world domination al world domination means dominatit
 in the American and Australian co
 tinents as much as in the continen
 of Europe and Asia.
 Her triumph would mean the U
 iumph of the swaggering militia
 bully rattling his sword in his sea
 bard prepared to stand in shining { -mor, prepared to extinguish free go
 ernment from the face of the earth.
 Trades Unionists would fully a
 precfate the justice of the call ma
 upon every patriotic citizen of u
 republic, for trade unionism W
 based upon the principle that no m
 had the right to receive the benei