“HOT THE ONLY VIRTUES”

Evening Star, Issue 22632, 26 April 1937, Page 12

“HOT THE ONLY VIRTUES”

PEACE AND PACIFISM ANALYSED “TOO OFTEN DOWNRIGHT COWARDICE " MR JUSTICE NORTHGROFT'S ADDRESS “ We need honesty and courage to face the realities. For instance, it is common to-day to talk of peace and pacifism as if these were the only virtues. Too often it is nothing but downright cowardice,” said the Hon. Mr Justice Northcroft, • who was the speaker at the citizens’ united memorial service yesterday afternoon (says the Christchurch ‘ Press ’). “ We remind each other,” he added, “ of the terrors of modern warfare, and because war has become too terrible we. say, therefore, wo must have peace. To. pursue this thought honestly, the next step would be to acknowledge that if war were less terrible than it has now become then peace would be less important. “OUR PRETENDED VIRTUE.” “ We must be honest with ourselves and consider how far our pretended virtue of pacifism is false and so more than’a false view based on fear. To put it in another way, we must do as. they did 20 years ago and face the realities with’honesty and courage, and acknowledge that. if war be proper, as, for instance, a defensive war, then however; horrible it be we must subdue our fears and fight. “ Similarly, the loyalty of these men should help us to remember with equal faithfulness our own obligations of loyalty; for instance, our loyalty to the King and to the Empire should be no merely nominal duty—sufficiently satisfied by easy platitudes. Rather should we remember what England meant to us in our beginnings and how we were defended and sustained throughout our years . of youthfulness. while still only a colony. Now that, with that help, we have attained our nationhood and have proved by the lives and deaths of these men of Anzao that we are fit to take our place in the conflicts of the world, it should be our proud duty of loyalty to stand always and squarely with England for the maintenance of those ideals in which she has nourished us.” Speaking in another connection, “ as a soldier and on behalf of soldiers,” he said it was common to-day to deplore war, and indeed in many of its aspects war was deplorable. That, _ however, was not. the view of the soldier.

“To the soldier,” he proceeded, “ it gives adventure; it gives manly living; it gives him relief from the artificial conventions which surround him. In many cases those who found it hard to lead the narrower and more conventional life of the average , good citizen found themselves andl their manhood and gained distinction in war as soldiers.

“ Again soldiers by war were able to test and prove their own personal courage. They discovered their capacity to maintain poise, self-respect, even cheerfulness in the face of great odds and) adversities. It was no small matter for soldiers to leam that they were still, able to smile in the face of dreadful misery. Thus did soldiers, prove to themselves that generations of peace had not destroyed courage. THE LESSON OF TOLERANCE. “ Again in war soldiers learnt to practise the - virtues of loyalty, faith- - fulness, unselfishness in a sens© and degree unknown to them previously. These mutual virtues revealed themselves in many ways and were practised daily and hourly as a matter of course and almost without recognition by the soldiers themselves. Thus wo had in the soldier his loyalty to bis regiment, bis loyalty to his officers, the loyalty of the officers to the men, and the loyalty of the men to each other. Again I say, speaking for soldiers, it was no small matter to learn of the strength and reality of those Christian, virtues in circumstances which afforded the greatest possible test of their reality. 1 “ Above all, soldiers learnt to be tolerant of their enemies. ‘lt might truly b© said they followed the divine injunction to love their enemies. They sought to overthrow him and to stay him, but only in the way of duty and never with hatred in their hearts. This may seem strange and almost unbelievable to those who were not direct participants in the war. Civilians were urged and needed little urging to indulge an intense hatred of the citizens of their enemy countries. Soldiers were able to live in a state of detachment from this frenzy and to pursue their task of subduing the enemy armies in a dispassionate spirit almost of goodwill which was as profound as it was surprising.”