A DENIAL OF JUSTICE

Evening Star, Issue 17824, 22 November 1921, Page 6

A DENIAL OF JUSTICE

GERMANY AND FRANCE COMPARED. MR KIPLING’S TWO PICTURES. In a letter to a French friend, an extract from which appears in tho ‘Matin,’ Mr Rudyard Kipling describes tho “long horror” of a visit to the devastated regions of Northern France, which came just after a visit to tho Rhine, says the Paris correspondent of the London ‘Times.’ On the Rhino Mr Kipling had found a countryside intact, full of women, children, and cattle, with fields cultivated right- to the edge of the road, smoking factory, chimneys, and on all sides loaded goods “ trains,” a country untouched by the ravages of war, in fact. In Franco there was everywhere desolation, and everywhere there was shell-holes. “When one thinks that there is not a single shell-hole in the land of the Hun” (says Mr Kipling) “one feels that soon (if He has not already begun) the Almighty will concern Himself with a world which lias refused justice lo the world. Can one be astonished when such an iniquity has been accepted that all tho forces of evil under the sun unite to say that there is no justice in I leaven to fear?” Mr Kipling describes bis first night at Verdun in an hotel in tho course of reconstruction, with its atmosphere of fallen plaster and fresh paint. In -iho “terrible silence of a half-dead city” tho noise of tho wreckage of a ruined house opposite swinging backwards and forwards, and then toppling and crumbling, could he heard, ami “then a fine dust of earth and limestone filled our room. And somehow this dull, rumbling noise, (and this odor! made us realise more than the sights of the day had hern aide to do the horror of the years behind and to como.” “ Again, at Rhcims, in the middle of the night” (MrKipdng goes on) “ wcheard that noire (a crossbar of broken iron in a wall twisted by fire!, and again wo smelt that odor. To think that a whole living couni ry like this has gone for years already with this odor in its nostrils! A fine dust also filled our hair and mixed with what we ate —not freali, clean dust-, but that- fine intimate dust Hint, can only come from houses that have been long inhabited. In tho oqni country, even at Taux and the- Mori- Homme, Nature is at work twing to restore herself, and with time that, will bo accomplished. But in the (owns, which are the work of man, man has to do his repairs alone, and the ruins of srnillen bouses fall and he round him like- a Hock smitten with plague. “ Shakespeare was right. To replace the dead wiio lie, noon battlefields costs only (he, pain of birth ft hiss is why the dead are so often forgotten and remain unavenged'. But flic material works of man—tho works of the long, hard labor by which and Ir. which hi? rend lives - are not so easily rebuilt, and. —hen they go hi? lu-,art goes with them. Y-fhal wig hr the Poul of a laud which, has to bring up its children with a-.ick souvenirt and ir such scenes? V’ 4 ’ a;- not yc; at tho begiuninv o! tho eriu> which will issue from this denial ol jus thy- And when the evih. are (hero our wise philosophers wih ask : ‘ What is tho cause?’ ” Mr Kipling gives a vivid little- sketch of an old countrywoman wandering .about in the " imm-onM: d/nssiatJOT. ” and striking. to rivh.t and left of her with a rake like a blind woman, lie asked his guide, an Alsatian general, fhe was doing, and the genera! replied; “I think too i? lo.drillc for Something that aim i-uri'M before the, war. I liavr often t.'-en {hr..- ” Ali.hons’i: ho had paiv-ec a who)-- cloy among the work? nl death. Ml Kipling sav::: ” Tbit little silhouette, wandering acrore- that broken diurnod-up vahe-y, turning her head from one side to tho other tike an nni, war more frightful than all I had seen during the day.” In conclusion. Mi Kipling declares that he finds it almost impossible to give a complete impression of tho reality to people to whom life, experience, and tradition have given no scale by which lo measure it. “ Thev must cress the sea and see with their own eye?, and I am glad to Ido able to say that' the people who go to ew are more and mure numerous. It is one thing to sco the assassin before the tribunal, and it is another to .see tho body of the victim. ... If only we could make an alliance with France —and I am convinced that at the bottom of their hearts that is the desire of onr people—wc might still he satisfied.”

Insurance Agent: “But you surely acree to taking out an insurance policy to cover your burial expenses?” Wily Scot; “ Na, na, moa; 1- rnichfc be lost fit seal”