Aug. 4
The anniversary of the beginning of the cataclysm which threw the nations of the world into a death embrace comes at a time when there is special reason for pondering over the significance of that disaster. Seven of the nations involved have met in London, former enemies and former allies, and have discussed, not the merits of their respective causes on August 4, 1914, but the means whereby they can ce-operate to preserve the common fabric of social existence. They may feel that they are paying heavily' for the mistakes of their!
civilisation so blindly to rush forefathers permitting to destruction. Yet, if they! are wise, they will realise that! regrets for past errors are vain. More profitable is it to note how service can be made of those errors to inform policy for the avoidance of even greater catastrophes in the future. For-. tunately, out of the travail of the Great War, visions and aspirations ascended to the skies, They were dulled and obscured by less worthy apparitions, born of the evils of deadly warfare—the hatred the passion and the fear which ever assail man in his fighting moods. When however pessimism, "with heavy aspect, sees grimly nothing but) those evils in the War and its aftermath, it is pertinent to point out that the discernment of those evils alone is an achievement of real benefit to! humanity.
Whether on one side or the other, the War brought out great qualities of human endurance, Reroie self-sacrifice, magnificent comradeship. How often since 1918, when serious troubles in the body politic have occurred, 5 not the word been uttered: "If only the spirit of the trend ches could be recreated we could see this thing through." The creation of the League of Nations is indeed itself a tribute to the tenacity of the good in man. That organisation lacks many of the qualities for which its promoters looked. It has not the world-authority first desired for it, It has at times to bow too obviously in the House of the Rimmon of expediency. Yet it stands firm at Geneva and today is regarded as the hope of the world for an escape from even worse trials than those which followed the fateful decisions of this day seventeen years ago.
On this subject it is iraposeible to avoid reference to- correspondence which has appeared in these columns on the subject of the method and manner of cele-rating the day of the termination of the struggle. Views have! been stated with a frankness: which has lacked neither! eloquence nor robustness. Without going into the special issue of the Armistice Remembrance Day, it is possible to discern in the letters a sincere desire for the discovery of some way out of the maze of international distrust and suspicion. That that maze still powerfully exercises its bemusing influence over men some of those letters testify. There is a very necessary proviso to bear in mind. Complete solution of this difficult question of the attitude of mankind to the War cannot be sought by way of unfaithfulness be}to the dead. On this day of August 4, it is meet to recall with gratitude the men who, in the pursuit of an ideal, thought nothing of all that they had or were, but merely offered themselves as a sacrifice for the sake of humanity. Whether their conception was wrong or right matters little. They at least could be acquitted of any selfish aims for, in pledge of delist in their mission, they gave all that they had to give. No. pact of comradeship designed to carry the world further towards the {deals for, which the League of fons stands can ever stand me tent of moral assessment it in any way is founded on forgetfulness or dishonour of those memories. The living have the right to ask that the glory of the dead shall not be honoured in a fashion which, by process of time, may disparage their own lofty ideals. Neglect of the lessons of the great struggle and the magnificent spirit which, amid all the mire, and foulness, maintained its unsullied radi-nce, will not help that as Piration to find honest express sion, Let there be every support given to the greater tolerance of the age, but truth, constancy and piety cannot be flouted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.