THE VALOUR OF THE SOLDIERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18591, 27 June 1922, Page 2

THE VALOUR OF THE SOLDIERS

DR GIBB’S REMARKS. CRITICISM AND A REPLY. (Feom Ode Own Corhespondent.) WELLINGTON, June 26. A good deal ot indignation has been privately expressed here, and even by members of his own flock, at some remarks recently made by the Rev. Dr Gibb in an address to Victoria College students. A public protest has now been made against the tenets of Dr Gibb by Mr J. P. Firth, C.M.G., who was the popular and able head for many, years of Wellington College. Mr Firth was speaking to the Old Boys’ Association. ‘‘Many of you,” he said, “are returned soldiers, and if you saw a paragraph which appeared in 'the report of a lecture in Wellington about a week ago, you must have been pretty nearly as indignant as I was. The lecturer is said to have quoted from ‘Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ this sentence: ‘The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.’ This surely does not come well from anyone who stayed at home, who did not go to tl;o front.” A voice: Name. Mr Firth: No, sir. Do you doubt the report? A voice : I would like to know who had the temerity to make the statement. Mr Firth; It is from the report of a lecture by the Rev. Dr Gibb at Victoria College. The speaker added that ho was sure that most of those who stayed at home would not subscribe to f ßie statement quoted. ■Mr Firth quoted Bourdillion’s well-known war poem about the sailors and soldiers, who in the war laid down their lives for the nation. Ho also quoted Sir James Barrie’s remarks on ‘‘Courage,” when ho was recently. installed as Rector of St. Andrew’s University, and added that he was inclined to think that the majority of those present will favour the sentiment of Sir James Barrie, rather than those of Dr Gibb. Mr Firth’s brief speech was received with loud applause. In this evening’s paper. Dr Gibb writes a long letter in reply, and suggests that he has been misreported, or that the report of his remarks has been misinterpreted. He states, seriatim, the objects erf the League of Nations, and says that he did not speak disparagingly of the soldiers. He adds that ho supposes that by the “cheapest” Gibbon meant that throughout the centuries it has always been found quite an easy thing to hire men to fight, even at the wretchedrates of remuneration paid to the private soldier. Readers of Carlyle will remember how often he remarks on the amazing fact that for _ a few pence a day men could be readily hired to stand up and be shot at. Dismissing this, Dr Gibb continues: “I argued that there is no need of war and battlefield to make men brave. It is in them. The Great War abundantly proved this, and yet I added the admission that I could never read of deeds that Walter Scott loved to call deeds —of derring do, without a thrill of wonder and admiration. Will you let me add to this already too long letter an expression of my own personal conviction, that the next international conflict (if another international conflict there is to be) will sweep the board? It is a small tiling that I am convinced of this, but the most eminent statesmen, publicists, and ecclesiastical leaders of Britain and the United States nave, with a gravity and emphasis that cannot be exaggerated, again and again assured the world that another great war will utterly destroy Western civilisation. Western civilisation means the white races. What I ask myself, and every thinking man, is the use of preparing for a conflict which, should it come, will bring the Western Powers to the dust, and probably relegate the white races to a subordinate and inferior place among the people of the earth 1 If Armageddon comes again, it does not seem as if it will matter much what we do or refrain from doing, we shall be beneath the ruins of a shattered world; therefore, I hold that all predictions of future wars and preparations tor the same are utterly mischievous, and, indeed, deadly. They tend to precipitate the calamity they aim at preventing. , The Christian Church ought to set its face like a flint against war. It ought to talk peace, and peaoe_ only. For myself, I am too much a, patriot to have either lot or part in a policy of armaments and warlike preparations, a policy which, if generally adopted, will bring a disastrous eclipse upon the British Empire and every civilised nation of the globe.” The Post, in a footnote, states that it cannot see that Dr Gibb has been either misreported or misinterpreted, and adds! “Nobody supposed that he spoke officially for the League of Nations* Union, but his connection with the movement has been such that it must v be gravely prejudiced in a patriotic country by his unfortunate address to the Victoria College students, and his almost equally unfortunate explanation. To the abject pacifism of his address he now adds an Oriental fatalism which is equally abject. If Dr Gibb would come down from the clouds and deal with facts and details, instead of generalities, he would be a clearer thinker and a safer guide.”