AUSTRALIA IN THE WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 21 February 1931, Page 11

AUSTRALIA IN THE WAR

historian honoured Members of the State council of the Returned Soldiers’ League entertained Dr. C. E. W. Bean, the Australian war historian, at a dinner in Sydney last week, to mark their appreciation of his monumental work and to express their satisfaction at the honour conferred upon him by the Melbourne University. Dr. . Bean said the official history was a great piece of team work and be was exceedingly proud of the team—Messrs H. S. On) eft, F. M. Cutlack, A. W. Jose, Scaforth Mackenzie, Professor Scott and Colonel Graham Butler; with his own staff, and with the official photographers—Captain Frank Hurley, the gallant Englishman Baldwin, who died through his service, and Sir Hubert Wilkins—what a team they were. “Twelve years ago wc set out with very little notion of the extent of our task, but with one fixed determination—to ensure that this history of Australia’s part in the war should be such as to bear comparison with any other country’s official history,” he continued. "1 am proud to tell you that every Prime Minister and every Government since the war, without the slightest distinction of party, has given us full support in this work. I am aware that there exist 'good people in Australia and elsewhere who would wish to obliterate all memory of the Great War, cut it out of our consciousness if that were possible, in the belief that, reading the history of war tends to the making of it.. One respects those people, but the sheltered innocence which they desire is not attainable, and would not be desirable if it could be attained. llow could it benefit either the student or humanity in general to cut. from their knowledge tho great episode to which pre-war conditiofis led up and from which the conditions of today have resulted? Wc should be leaving men to plan their future without, knowledge of the most important episode in their immediate past. Democracy is only in danger of being led into avoidable war if it is ignorant of history and can be hoodwinked by leaders playing upon that ignorance. Like most great disasters —bush fires, floods, plague epidemics—war is a great test of national character; the history of all such evils is fortunaCsly also the history of man’s heroism in combating them. In this last great test the Australian nation, previously almost unknown to most other peoples, won the respect of the world. The tusk of the Australian war historian is to record that (act and the reason of it; it is the greatest, fact in our lifetimes, and the history of it could not be withhold without kiss to our nation and gross injustice (o those on whom was laid flic responsibility of exhibiting Australian character to the world.”