THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1929. OUR GLORIOUS FOURTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20324, 3 August 1929, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1929. OUR GLORIOUS FOURTH.

Crowded as they have been with pressing questions of their own, the fifteen years elapsed since August 4 of 1914 have not effaced the memory of Britain's deliberate entry on that date to as grim a quarrel as ever the world has Been. It. would bode ill for humankind if that event could be forgotten. Never was a national step more solemnly taken. Day after day, with tho knowledge that on their decision hung issues of great moment, British Cabinet Ministers met to discuss tho crisis. Germany had flung down the gauntlet. Belgian neutrality, of which Britain was a joint custodian, had been flagrantly violated. That presented an inescapable necessity to say whether or no Britain would brook so bludgeonly an assault upon the peace of Europe and the world. Those days brought burdens to every heart in that Cabinet circle. There was a reluctance to intervene. All felt it, whatever their opinions of the situation. Through tho rapid sequenco of tragic events, which all had watched with growing concern, the issue they had to settle had come, to thunder its challenging arousal at the door of their judgment. Tho murders at Serajevo, the ultimatum flung at Serbia by Austria, the precautionary mobilisation of troops by Serbia and Montenegro, tho sudden declaration of war by Austria in spite of Serbia's conciliatory answer, the announcement of Russia's siding with Serbia, the threat of Germany to Russia, and then, in swift succession, the activity of Turkey and Germany's swift inroad, east, west and south, into neighbouring territory, with particular fury in Belgium and France —as the outlook darkened there was seen the impossibility of British silence. But what should be said? Around the Cabinet table there were varying opinions as the days passed. At last, not with full unanimity, but with adequate agreement and firm, resolve, the decision was reached. ar was declared.

Into the fifteen years since that fateful day many whispering thoughts have come. It has been suggested that soft words from Britain would have smoothed away the trouble. There have been bemoanings, because of life and treasure lost, that those soft words were not spoken. We might, it has been said by some, have held aloof and become commercially rich as purveyors of goods needed by the belligerent countries; or wo might, at least, have waited until circumstances, perhaps some open threat against ourselves, compelled our entry to the quarrel. These things avail now as little, after all the years of calm review, as they did then. They are seen for what they really are—more sordid than any experience their denial brought when the horrors of tho conflict were upon us, and meaner far than anything entailed by war. To have " made through cowardice the great, refusal" would have been a betrayal too horrible to contemplate. To have counted the cost, with thought of commercial profit, would have made of us something worse than a nation of shopkeepers: we should have been a nation of shoplifters. In their heart of hearts, all healthyminded British men and women are gladly content, whatever the hurt then involved and since enduring, that the decision was made to resist unto blood. We need no convincing of the hellishness of war; but we are just as firmly persuaded that the hell had to be endured. Not seeking war, but scorning to fly from it, Britain and her Dominions saved at least their good name, a thing better than riches and worthier than peace. In a day when conscience and war are often jostling each other in thought—a happening by no means to be regretted, so long as thought allows them both a fair field —this passing of calm judgment on Britain's entry into the quarrel well includes a recognition of conscience. The plain question is—Was the decision right or wrong? Considerations of calculating expediency, taking account of this advantage to be possibly reaped or that loss to be possibly suffered, are beside the point. One issue stands clearly out, and only one: could we have behaved otherwise and kept our selfrespect'! Put honestly thus, the question admits of but one answer. To have stayed out would have been to break faith, to dishonour our word, to betray the trust reposed in us because of that word ; in short, it was in obedienge to the dictates of conscience that the declaration of war was made by Britain on that crucial August day. Says Stevenson, "It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in the retrospect; we should have been cut-throats to do otherwise." It is so with that decision. It was morally inevitable. Tho thoroughgoing pacifist, immorally content that those dependent on him for succour should suffer even the direst torments and enslavement rather than that he himself should face any risk of hurt or loss, may not understand this attitude. He may prefer to juggle with the "might have been" and to hunt for all sorts of emergency exits from the arena of facts instead of facing them as they had in 1014 to be faced. To go calmly back to that crisis, and to review it in tho light of all that has since become known to even the wayfaring man amid history, is to be thankful that, whatever else Britain lost through the decision, she saved her soul. All else, however it may be reckoned, matters little,.

THE CENOTAPH. The decision that a cenotaph and court of honour shall be added immediately to tho War . Memorial Museum will be widely approved. When it was found that these features were to be omitted, or ut least postponed indefinitely, a good deal of regret was expressed, accompanied by some resentment. The Returned Soldiers' Association, a body with a right to decided opinions on the subject, was especially disturbed on finding that the features best calculated to stamp on the building its character as a memorial to the fallen were likely to be eliminated for financial reasons. Their actual character is not so significant as their purpose, though sentiment has been expressed directly in favour of a permanent cenotaph, a replica of that monument in London where so many acts of homage to the memory of the heroic dead have been paid. It must always remain the Cenotaph, the place where the silent armies of the whole Empire aro commemorated and done honour on appropriate occasions. Its duplication elsewhere robs it of none of its primal value, but rather increases its strength as a symbol. It iB very fitting that Auckland's memorial, noble pile that it is, should have this monument before its face. To carry out its intention, tho City Council must make another appeal to the generosity of the public, already so freely displayed in providing for tho building itself. No doubt is expressed about the result. Many people would gladly contribute more, rather than see the memorial bereft of its most distinctively memorial touch. The note of disquiet that has been heard should now be stilled, and the war memorial as a whole bo elevated to a higher place still in public regard by reason of the decision to proceed immediately with this work.