THE MEN WHO DIED.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19481, 30 November 1928, Page 12

THE MEN WHO DIED.

MR BALDWIN'S TRIBUTE. MESSAGE TO YOUTH. (pbou otm <roir cobbbs^ohoent.) LONDON, October 19. . "Every Englishman ought to walk> through the Menin Gate and recognise that on that gate are the names of 50,000 men who died in the Ypres Salient, and whose last resting place is not known. That will bring home,to all of us what modern war means—sometimes difficult for 'civilians to realise—and will strengthen our hearts and hands in striving for peace in this world." < This was a moving passage in a speech which the Prime Minister made at Dudley, when, in the immediate view of widows and near relatives of men who fell in the war, he opened the gates of a new Memorial Olock Tower, and lighted the Eternal Lamp of Remembrance. Mr Baldwin Baid that before the task of opening a War memorial he always quailed. "I feel," he said, "that on these occasions it is a very difficult thing for a man who did not take part in the war to offer any observations in the face of those who did. Reverence for the men who fought, and for the dead, ties one's tongue as nothing else does.'' The great thing missed in this country was the man of 35 to 40, who to,day should be in his prime, and able 'to take on his shoulders the big, and responsible jobs of life. Those men lay to the number of a million from the Empire, in battlefields all over the world. "We have to carry on without them," said Mr Baldwin, "until the new generation has grown up and has learned to tread in "their footsteps.

"To the rising generation I say: Every time you look on a war memorial make this resolution —that as those inen went to their death, so yon. will go to your life." t The new tower is the most striking feature of new buildings erected at 8 cost of £60,000, and including a town hall which perpetuates the memory of Mr Brooke Robinson, for twenty years M.P. for Dudley. " Over the entrance to the memorial chamber containing the names of 700 men of Dudley, who gave their lives in the Great War, are inscribed the following lines, specially written by the late Thomas Hardy:—

If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously Of those who as heroes fought, And died to keep you free.

Mr and Mrs Baldwin and their son, Mr Oliver Baldwin, the prospective Labour candidate for Dudley, were on the same platform. Another son, Mr Wyndham Baldwin, was w the body 01 tho hall.