TRIBUTE TO BRAVE MEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 24 October 1941, Page 4

TRIBUTE TO BRAVE MEN

IT was the historian, Edward Gibbon, who wrote that the effects of personal valour are inconsiderable except in poetry and romance. Gibbon was not intending to disparage , ' personal valour but was attempting to evaluate its net results. As he ! surveyed the character of the first Hun king, Attila, and dwelt on his 1 | cunning, ruthlessness and dictatorial savagery he was led to the conclusion 1 that in battle these elements mustl ' often have more far-reaching effects than human bravery on its own. Over 1 the whole field of human conflict this is probably true. Gibbon’s argument ■is reinforced to-day when science ' and invention have put so many . j machines and other contrivances—l ingenious but soulless—into men’s, hands to counter human bravery. And yet what age in history hasj not honoured and admired men brave in battle? That is where our heroes 1 come from to-day just as they did in the past. Nelson honoured one of j them yesterday when the people met to give a rousing reception to Ser- 1 geant Hulme, to pay tribute to his' •family and, at the same time, to r 1 express gratitude to the other; | returned men as well as to those who j are still fighting for us. The Mayor] said he had never seen a man so shy; as the V.C. winner and Sergeant i j Hulme implied that he would feel ! more at home with a tommy gun in his hand than a microphone. Bravery] and modesty often go together jm i men. Here is a man brought up. I among us, just an ordinary citizeni like the rest of us, who, in the supreme test of battle, exhibits the j highest qualities of skill, courage and j resource. i In his speech he revealed himself ja man of action. He spoke simply 'and sincerely what he was thinking,' j not hesitating to say that that was ' the proudest moment he had ever known and paying a high compliment to the Province of his adoption by adding that, if there was one place: 1 he would like to have the honour of j 1 bringing the Cross to, it was Nelson, i j At the same time, and behind it all,! j was the feeling which he expressed; ! that the award was as much to mark j the bravery of his comrades as his own. He acknowledged the value of their friendship and to the fallen he paid one of the simplest and most! touching tributes possible. Chivalry j may be different in this twentieth century from what it was in the days , of the old knights but it is not dead] when a man so modest yet so brave ! can be reared among us.