"MONUMENTS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 97, 26 April 1932, Page 10

"MONUMENTS."

THE GOOD AND THE BAD

EX-SOLDIERS DESTITUTE

CHAPLAIN'S OUTSPOKEN ADDRESS,

The duty of the country and the peoplo towards ex-soldiers was emphasised by the Rev. John Hiddlcstone, Chaplain to the Forces, in an outspoken address delivered at the citizens' Anzac Day commemorative service in the Town Hall yesterday.

Taking as his text, Exodus, 12.14, "This Day Shall Bo Unto You for a Memorial," Mr. Hiddlcstone said that on this, Anzac Day, there was a renewal of the old stabbing pain, the old, stunned questioning sense of the sheer folly of it nil. Many again asked the question, Why ? "As we pass through ttie cities and townships of this Dominion," he said, "We are constantly being reminded, by the memorials which have been erected by grateful citizens, of those who paid the supreme sacrifice in the war and in whose honour we meet today. There is another monument of those tragic,years, which we pass each day in every town and city, and, alas, they fail to kindle within us our sense of responsibility."

"During tlie war it was a daze of shocked bewilderment that we watched half the earth being suddenly trampled into a muddy batter by thousands of straining feet. Wo promised that when all was over the world would bo more Christ-like, and His ideals would govern the world. To-day, we stand stupefied and amazed, discovering that the very things for which men and women laid down their lives and suffered agony have mastered us, until we seem to have almost lost heart. Here we see men and women, made for a rich clean life, in bondage to those things which we said the world would bo clear of. The world is overshadowed by an economic crisis. Politicians are at their wit's end to find solutions. We have missed the mark. We read of ships rusting and inactive in practically every port in the world; wo hear from others who come from abroad of long queue of hungry men and women waiting outside employment bureaus, keen to work, but finding nothing to put their hands to; we seo outside our own Charitable Aid Board's office, hundreds waiting for an allowance of food. Many men who fought for us are among them, eager to work, but unable to find it. We have a host of men who have to make the choice between hunger and the acceptance of charity. This is a monument which wc people in New Zealand should bo ashamed to acknowledge as a token of gratitude to those men and their families."

People's Responsibility. Mr. Hiddlestone said the same men would answer the country's call to-day as readily as they did before. Many of the returned soldiers were to-day suffering from the want of things which were in abundance in this country. Surely the solemn responsibility of all was to carry on the great work unfinished by those men who died. That should be an inspiration, a compulsion to us to put cheerful unselfishness in the living of our lives and the facing of our problems; in the thinking out of the difficulties of our time. The one effective monument wo could erect was to catch the soldiers' spirit and in our thought, our home life, our business, our politics, our handling of social questions —to hand on the blazing torch that they, in falling, threw to us.

"We are making endeavours to prevent war, as men have often done before," he said. "God in His goodness may enable us to see the way to render that obsolete. But is not our problem something bigger than merely to eliminate war, with all its horrors? Is not the problem which confronts us to find some effective way for the masses to utilise that gallantry, that self-sacrifice, that bigness of nature, which war creates, "till ordinary mortals become heroes, daily doing deeds that make us proud with joy, flinging away their lives with pripcely carelessness? That is the spirit we need to-day, which the who sacrificed their lives, taught Here to-day, we are still a long way from understanding and applying that truth." •- -

"Righteousness Before Revenue." It was no use preaching peace when there was no peace. It was 110 use saying all was well when all was not well. In the economic struggle people were more concerned with other things than flesh and blood. Every trade was thinking of its own little interests, and Capital and Labour were pulling at opposite ends of tlie rope, wasting their energies. Where was one trace of the spirit of the men who volunteered for the country —that great spirit of sacrifice? Had we learned nothing? "Look at the monument wo have erected.

"If wo are to erect a suitable monument," he concluded, "we have to realise that our civilisation is going to disaster unless we discover, and speedily, that many of our basic principles are not Christian. We will have to teach our politicians that righteousness comes before revenue. We have all got to get the spirit of Christ into all our activities and avenues of life. All their sacrifices are in vain until wc apply the teaching of Jesus Christ to life. And Christ is calling us into new realms of thought; new ways of living, that we may erect a monument that wo may be proud of."