PEACE AND WAR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 90, 26 January 1928, Page 3

PEACE AND WAR.

SIR; lAN; HAMILTON'S OPINION

We have been told- that peace must come gradually as an acorn grows into an oak.r But an oak takes 100 years to reach maturity. 1 prefer the old fairy tale' of Jack the Giant Killer, 'who planted a bean, and who spiflicated the giant with hi* own. hand, not; with that of hisi.great-grandson, .said General Sir lan Hamilton during a characteristically i Vivid speech in opening the war mejnbrial pavilion of the Glasgow High School, reports the' ["Glasgow Herald." Continuing, he said that in the Book of Remembrance ,the 'mournful images. of war Were lit op by donstaiit flashes of geiierosity, of gallantry arid camaraderie. " The theatre of war was [full of, these chaiices and opportunities of distinction and gallantry and sclf-sacri- ] fice. Peace had few of these chances compared to war. Yet they had to remember this: as in the cyclone, the flashes.of .lightning had a,certain grandeur arid 'beauty' of* their own): still, after all, they chiefly served to illumine the ruins that lay. upon the path of the storm. So also it was in a sense with war.

The past was past, but the future was still in our ' hands. Havinmr unveiled so manv war memorials I am now a man of peace. But so long as decent, sensible, loyal nations like the Americans and the Japanese and the British cannot come to an agreement for a> limitation of cruisers vou are hound to go on training. You are bound to have your officers' trnminsr corps, to be as well drilled and as ready for war as you can be. A loading, European said to me a few days 'ago: "The economic misery of the people of Europe is so great that the reverberation of the first cannon shot will bring down the whole fabric with a run." But whilst you must train and get ready until statesmen come to' an agreement, do as individuals try in i every way that seems best to you to avoid war. Don't palter with neace. If every nation wants all the time to -T-epare for peace by all the time keeping itself absolutely ready for war. then you boys are all for it again. Remember that. You boys are for it again, which God forbid- Amen! "English Review.".