BANNOCKBURN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

BANNOCKBURN.

OPINIONS OF SANDY.

BY KOTARE.

If there was ever a man who loathed jingoism and spreadeaglism with every fibre of a robust personality, it is my old friend Sandy. Anything that arises from a falso sense of values, national or individual, is anathema to him. Snobbery of any kind he cannot away with. There are few baits that will induce him to rise, but I can always get him going by a casual roferenco to Kipling. Ho can forgive moro than most men I know, but he has never forgiven Kipling for disfiguring his beautiful "Recessional" by a contemptuous reference to lesser breeds without the law. Diseased self-esteem ho considers a, tragic joke in an individual; a morbid growth of national self-esteem is to him tho surest mark of the devil's control, ior to his broad toleranco the deadly sin is intolerance. I thought I had him on the hip; for to his gonial sympathy tor all sorts and conditions of men ho unites an unusually vigorous patriotism. "I seo your brother Scots have been celebrating Bannockburn once again. Isn't it about time they let the matter drop? It is 611 years since Edward 11. led the English hosts to tho greatest, disaster an English army over sustained in the field. 1 admit it, was a famous victory. But why on earth gloat about it after six centuries? I'm sure you wouldn't countenance such misplaced patriotism." "That's where you make a big mistake," Sandv broke .n. "Of course, 1 was there. It was the worst night of the season, but 1 managed to get along to the hall. I wouldn't miss a Bannockburn celebration for all tho tea in China, or out of it. You needn't shrug your shoulders. I fear you don't know much about history or the character of the Scot either."

"That reminds me," I replied, "of a recent quip in an English weekly. The author states that oatmeal porridge is usually alleged to have had the chief part in forming the Scottish character. Ho indignantly refutes that as a vicious and quite unwarranted libol on an innocent and wholesome breakfast food."

"No doubt, no doubt. That's just the sort of joke a certain type of mind would be sure to make, and kindred minds would consider irresistibly funny. We don't rrfind that sort of thing. It gives-some folks a little* amusement and it doesn't hurt us. But, your objection t-o Bannockburn celebrations is a horse of another colour. I would like you to understand the Scotsman's attitude. National Days.

"Look at it this way. You would he glad to think that 600 years hence New Zealanders will still be celebrating Anzac Day, setting it apart from all the other days of the year as a time of proud and hallowed memories. And why ? Because Anzac Day marks our birth into nationhood. For the first timo in our history we had our chance to prove what manner of men we had been breeding in New Zealand. At Gallipoli we knew tho measure and the worth of our manhood. For all tho world to see we were for the first time weighed in the balances and not found wanting. We could hold up our heads among the proudest nations of tho earth, not because our fathers had playod their part nobly on many a stricken field, but because our own men, the men whom New Zealand had formed and made, had proved once and for all that the old stock was still running true to type, with all the qualities that had made the past glory of our national history and perhaps a few new ones of our own. You admit that ? Well, Bannockburn means the same thing to Scotland; if possiblo it means even more. " For Scotland had been suffering from an inferiority complex, if one might apply th" current jargon of the latest psychological fad. She had lost the knack of victory. She had ceased to look for vdctory. England was supreme, and though she might fight despairingly, Scotland was doomed to vassalage, her proud estate as an independent kingdom lost forever, her identity swamped in tho might and numbers of England. At Bannockburn she asserted her right to separate nationhood. At Bannockburn the Scottish character in its dour rugged strength was revealed to a startled world. Scotland had won her place in the sun, a place that could never again be challenged. And more important' still, she came there through bitter tribulation to a realisation of her own worth, and you will agreo she has never lost that. It was a great thing that the world should know tho granite strength of the Scottish character; it was of more consequence that Scotland herself should know it. Did you ever read what Sir Walter said about it? I can easily lay my finger on tho placehere it is;

Though there mifcht bo fear and doubt, there could not bo a thought of despair when Scotsmen saw hanging liko hallowed reliquea above their domestic hearths the sword* with which their fathers served tho Bruco at tho field of Bannockburn. And tho Scots may have tho prido to recollect and other nations to loam from their history, that to a bravo people ono victory will do more to sustain tho honourable spirit of independerico than twonty defeats can servo to suppress it. Its Imperial Value. " That was in itself a sufficiently great matter. But Bannockburn stands in history as one of the first foundation stones upon which the British Empire was ultimately to bo built. England learns lessons slowly, and she has paid a high cost for her education. But when sho learns, she does not forget. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there was only one way of national expansion, by utter subjection and absorption of conquered peoples. The strong drovo the weak to the wall. There could be no recognition of equality between neighbouring states. If two rode a horse one must ride behind. Great Britain was a self-contained country big enough, it seemed, for only one nation; and naturally to ..the English mind, English must rule. The recognition of any oilier British nation on terms of equality was at that date inconceivable. Bannockburn changed all that. Scottish independence from that date became almost an axiom of statecraft. The way was prepared for harmonious co-operation, later to become union in one great indissoluble partnership, where the big nation and the small worked side by side, on terms of absolute equality, to the same common ends. If only Ireland had been ablo to fight and win a battle c-f Bannockburn, or England had had the sense to apply the lesson learned in Scotland to her business in Ireland, we would have been spared some of the darkest and most tragic pages of our national history. Saint Joan. " I reckon the whole British Empire ought to honour the Bannockburn anniversary. It is one ot tho biggest days in our Imperial history. It is a queer thing that England has learned most of her imperial lessons from foreigners. Bruce taught her the value of partnership, without which all her colonising instincts would have been frustrated whenever they tried to express themselves. Joan of Arc taught her that her futuro must not lie iu Europe. When she put new heart into France, and created round her personality the unity that was the ono thing needful for that sorely stricken and divided country, she ended forever England's adventures on the continent, and prepared her for her natural expansion in the lands across the sea. And when England had established ner colonies in America, George Washington taught her that sho must carry out in relation to her daughter nations tho samo principle of co-operation and partnership among free peoples that Bruce had driven homo with spear and sword at Bannockburn.

" So I'll always turn up at a Bannockburn anniversary whilo those old feet can carry me, and if anyone likes to add to our days of festival celebrations in honour of Joan of Arc and George Washington, you'll find me thero too."