A FEROCIOUS DOCTRINE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 314, 29 September 1908, Page 6

A FEROCIOUS DOCTRINE.

Of the many surprising things said by the people who supplied the oratory on Dominion Day none was quito 30 remarkable' as the glorification of war to which the peoplo of Napier were treated by Colonel Davies. His address was described in very cautious terms by our correspondent as " somewhat outspoken, with a decided military ring." ; The Mayor, it appears, had been telling the cadets that he hoped they would never be called upon to" fight, To Colonel Dwies this evidently appeared to be the very worst kind of idea to put into the boys' heads. " He did not say we were going to fight Germany," he is reported as saying,, " but "—and one can . feel the note of regret in his ' voice—" wo had not fought for a long time, and were going to. fight with someone. The fact ■that there had not been a war for a long time did not affect the question, beciuso every day brought it nearer. The Mayor 1 had stated that he hoped the boys would never fight. He (the speaker) did not. lle hoped they would, arid quoted Buskin to show the benefit of war. As a flower needed frost and an individual needed hardship, so, he held, did a nation need war to build it into a strong race." We had imagined that it was only in novels that military men asked hungrily for an opportunity to slaughter enemies, and that Me. Kipling was alone amongst real human beings in his passion for carnagc. It cannot be that Colonel Davies, weary of these dull days of peace, is anxious to satisfy his personal craving for battle. 16 cannot hr that he disagrees with the rest of the world as to the compatibility of a desire for pcace with an anxiety to be prepared for war. Nor can wo so affront his intelligence as to suppose that ho thinks it ridiculous to keep a gun and not wish to fire it at somebody. • Two theories remain for the explanation of his ferocious doctrine. Either he feared that the cadets would lose all their keenness if they heard, anyone expressing the hope that they might never be called upon to fight, or else ho actually believes that it is high time we were up and killing somebody for the sake of our conscicnces, our muscles, and our digestions. No sensiblo boy is in tho least likely to misunderstand a senior who adds to his counsels of vigilance and devotion to arms the hope that occasion may not arise for the solemn test of the battlefield. Tho average cadet may be trusted to become a proficient soldier without tho inducement that there is a real live German or some other foreigner waiting to rccc.ivo his bayonet on a future day. Colonei, Davihs must know this, and his gospel of fcrocity must therefore have its origin in a fooling tlrnt tho pcace men

arc getting too much of the public's attention, and that unless raw meat, as it were, is given to our young people, they will find themselves mentally anaemic when they are grown up. War may or may not bo a good thing for the nation that can win—tho point is still an arguable one—but cvon if war has a purifying and strengthening influence upon a people, as it frequently has had in history, it does not therefore follow l that a nation should take a war periodically as one takes a tonic or tho mud-baths. It is surprising that Colonel Davies, of whose merits as a soldier there is no question, should not have realised that this ferocious doctrine is highly unsuitable for public propagation, and specially unsuitable as a doctrinc for oui boys. ,