From Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and the most isolated outposts of our great Empire, arose like the vast stirring of a sea, the salutation of the Colonies and Dependencies. Germany had relied upon conspiracy in India, instead of which the Princes and Chiefs were amongst the first to offer their services and their wealth. The following remarkable letter, written by an old Indian soldier to a young soldier at the front, was published in an English newspaper: “Praise be to the Guru. Your father Sundar Singh here writes a word to his dear son Sampuran Singh. It is meet for a young man to be in the battle, and on this account I am not taking thought. I am well and happy, and I pray to the Guru for your welfare and happiness. When you receive this letter answer it and relate to me the full conditions of the war.... Take no thought for your life in the battle, for it is right to fight for the King, and great glory will come to Hindustan, and the Sikhs, and fame to the regiment.” Germany had valued at nothing our amateur Colonial soldiery until their baffled forces reeled back before the charge of the Canadians at Ypres. In our own country, impoverished though many districts have been by emigration, the answer to Britain’s summons was epic. In our Highlands and to those who know their history, it was such as to bring a lump to the throat. Long ago Sir Walter Scott wrote: “In too many instances the Highlands have been drained, not of their superfluity of population, but of the whole mass of the inhabitants, dispossessed by an unrelenting avarice which will one day be found to have been as short-sighted as it is selfish and unjust. Meantime, the Highlands may become the fairy ground for romance and poetry, or the subject of experiment for the professors of speculation, historical and economical. But, if the hour of need should come, the pibroch may sound through the deserted region, but the summons will remain unanswered.” The summons has not remained unanswered. The Highland regiments have been doubled and quadrupled, while from over the seas the Highlanders have come back under Canadian Colours. There is not a man with the old Celtic fire who has not, if he were able, delivered a blow for the sake of the women and children of Belgium. Why did they come? “Me no muckle to fight for?” said Edie Ochiltree, the old beggar. “Isna there the country to fight for, and the burn-sides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o’ the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o’ weans that come toddling to play wi’ me when I come about a landward town?”