C. E. MONTAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 278, 23 November 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

C. E. MONTAGUE.

Journalist, Soldier, Censor.

A NOBLE ENGLISHMAN.

HIGH QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM.

PRIVATE THOUGHTS ON WAR,

vjsy E.V.D.)

Few more interesting experiences await a *«ader than the gaining of a fuller knowledge of an author whose books he has long admired. Apart from the cheap, prying curiosity, prevalent in our time, of people who inquire concernin» an author's taste in ties, or his opinions of other authors, or his judgment on issues he can know nothing about, every reader must feel an interest in the personal history, mental development and character of any author Trhose work he regards as more than ephemeral. The letters of such a man, then, may be doubly interesting. If they are edited well they are interesting in themselves, and also, by revealing their author's character, they stimulate the leader to re-read with a fuller comprehension, a shelf of treasured books.

The character of C. E. Montague, shown in his letters,* seems to one leader (who here and now confesses himgelf a whole-hearted admirer) to approach very nearly that of the ideal English gentleman. the gentleman hf Newman's ideal, he endeavoured to put jnore into life than he took out of it. He yas intellectually honest, his moral jpourage matched his physical daring, and yithal he had that rarest of virtues, a jreiiuine manly humility.

Montague was by trade a journalist. 4nd he rose to be assistant editor of that great newspaper —many think it the greatest —the "Manchester Guardian. 51 When the Great War came he was 48, but he enlisted as a private in the Eoya] fusiliers. The report was that he dyed iis white hair to deceive the recruiting officers. After being injured in a bombing accident he was denied permission to Return to the trenches. He became an Intelligence officer, assigned the odd duty of conducting distinguished visitors, gnests of the Army, over the Western jTont. In this work he gained a broader knowledge of the war in France than, probably, any other man, and he oained an intimate and detailed knowledge as well. That knowledge he used after the war in the greatest of his books, "Disenchantment," which competent judges say has no equal iin all the host of war books written in English. . Towards the end of the conflid; he was engaged as Press censor, attached to the little band of war correspondents which included' Philip Gibbs, Percival Phillips, and Beach Thomas, After the war he returned to his former post with the '•JIG.," until-the end.of-1925, when he retired and devoted himself to writing - books. He was tired" of doing" what to Mm was easy. All his life he preferred ; ifie difficult. Three years later he died Of pneumonia;. ... "Living Dangerously." One impression is very strong after reading these letters; their writer was happy. He worked and played extremely hard, and with an, immense gusto that permeates all his writings. He loved, - even more than the drama, of which he was a distinguished critic, and a few books, which he knew with an extraordinary thoroughness, the open-air and tS. things in it. Something of the zest with which he mountaineered can be Appreciated in reading those of his fesays published under the title of "The Eight Place." He had a taste for danger, and although he could not "live dangerously" in Manchester, he could do so in his holidays, and at the war, where he was reproved for escorting great personages too close to the German shells. ' He loved, most of all, the English countryside and the common English people, led this was the basis of his patriotism. The quab'ty of his patriotism is shown in some of the most interesting passages in this memoir, those in which he records his private thoughts on war. He wrote in his diary:

To take part in war cannot. I think, be Squared -with Christianity. So far the Quakers are right. But I am more sure of my duty of trying to -win this war than I am that Christ was right in every-part of aH that He said, though no one has ever said so much that was right as He did. Therefore I wDI try, as far as my part goes, to win the war, not pretending meanwhile that I am obeying Christ, and after the war I will try harder than I did before to obey Him in all the things in which I am sure He was right. Meanwhile may God give me credit for not seeking to be deceived, and pardon me if I mistake. - And again: To have had a part in this war will deepen in most men the feeling that war is a thing first to be avoided by every honourable means and then to be won by every honourable means. \ And, when the Armistice was near: I hope our greedy and bloodthirsty noncombatants and profiteers will hold their tongues. ... If the caterpillars of the commonwealth had their way, our part In this war, noble at first, would end in meanness, and the British nation's greatest chance of distinction in all its history would be thrown away.

This is not that patriotism which consists in conformity to popular beliefs; it is the purer and much more difficult patriotism which demands that, even in moments of great temptation, one's nation shall live up to the most exalted of its ideals. . . . Would that there

had been more Montagues at the Peace Conference!

It is a Shavian paradox that this Englishman, so jealous of his country s great name, was of pure Irish descent. Nobility Versus Shabbiness. Montague's latest novels, "Rough Jus.tice" and "Right Off The Map," won him no great renown. He himself confessed that the first was "far out of the fashion." He had gathered, he told a friend, that "the reigning convention is that novelists are never to. betray any preference for fine people above base oifev *sd that no .7<mng Trader is ever to be able to gather from a novel tnat nobility is a more interesting thing than shabbiness."

Montague's influence was ever thrown en the side of nobility of character.

•"C. E. Montague: A Memoir," by Oliver i Elton, .(Cnatto and Wmdns.)., U