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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18625, 5 August 1922, Page 7

It is not unlikely that some people may be of opinion that the world hears, or reads, something more than enough of Dean Inge in these days. Cynics might even wonder whether this intellectually restless cleric is able to spare mtich time from his secular avocation for the dis-

charge of the duties of his spiritual vocay tiom. We daresay, however, that he gives his week-ends, or at least his Sundays, to St. Paul’s. Anyhow, it must be admitted that the Dean’s discursive dissertations are seldom lacking in interest, and, thongh his name has come to be almost proverbially associated with gloominess of outlook, there can be little doubt that he has been a victim of pseudo-humorous exaggeration ifi this respect. He was never more entertaining, perhaps never more provocative, than : n a recent appeal to Englishmen, qua Englishmen, to entertain a good conceit of themselves and not tacitly allow other branches of the Imperial family to claim a monopoly or even a predominant share of the virtues and attractive qualities. “We have acquiesced in thp ‘unhistoric and pinchbeck title of British,’ as Mr Thomas Hardy calls it, and our newspapers are beginning to use the deliberately insulting Americanism ‘Britisher,’ just out of good nature and a mistaken idea of'modesty. It is time to cry a halt!” The subject has to be treated cautiously, not to say pawkily, in a place where Englishmen (though no longer a “now iniquity”) are in a minority; and the Dean might not find ready acceptance for the following claim if it were presented from a Dunedin platform: It is England - which invented parliamentary institutions, which gave its language and laws to the British Isles, and produced our immortal literature; it is England which taught honour and manliness, kindliness, fair play, and toleration to a world which much needed and has aa yet only half-learnt those English lessons.

It must not be supposed that Dean Inge was playing with his subject in a spirit of light banter. Indasd, playfulness is neither his forte nor his foible. There is an almost bitter earnestness in his allusions to the work and the treatment of English troops in the war time. For instance: i

We [Englishmen! have never done ourselves more injustice than during the war. To read the reports, it might be supposed that all the best work was done by Australasian, Canadian, Scottish, and even Irish regiments. Every feat of arms performed by the gallant soldiers from the dominions was duly chronicled; the exploits of the English troops, who were by far the largest, contingent, were passed over. But the facts are known to those who care to know them. Whether or not it is true, as a\ prominent, Canadian asserted, that crurVWar Office deliberately suppressed accounts of English heroism and English successes, it is now certain that the English regimen to were the backbone of the Western front, and especially the Old Country Regiments, such" as the Worcesters, the Shropshires, the Devons, and the Hampshiree. Special praise was occasionally given to a nominally Irish regiment, at which 76 per cent, wore Englishmen.

That passage does hot make very pleasant reading, and erven though there is more than a substratum of truth in the allegations it may be questioned if any useful purpose can be served by reviving snob controversial matters. The Dean’s “Englishism” (he would object to the term), arresting as it is, hardly seems to make far Imperial comity. v It was an admitted grievance during the course of the war that acknowledgment of the gallant service performed by the British regiments was withheld in the published despatches. -It was from no lack of appreciation of those services—memorable services for which no praise could be too high—and from no merely capricious motive that this occurred. There were military reasons for it, the soundness of which cannot reasonably be disputed. The war had to be “fought ; n a fog," by which is meant that it was of importance that the enemy should be prevented as far as possible from obtaining information as to the composition of the forces that were opposed to him. Sir William Beach Thomas, whose name wRI be recognised as that of a war correspondent of the Daily Mail, alluded to this in an address recently delivered by him at a meeting of journalists in Sydney. The Australian and Canadian troops were mentioned under similar conditions more than any other troops in France, for, a technical reason. It woo the duty of the Intelligence Department to prevent the Germans from learning anything about the British line. That was why the names of regiments were not allowed to be used. The Australians and Canadians were the only divisions permanently assembled together into corps, and as the Germans always knew which corps they were up against, there was no need to keep this secret, and the correspondents were told that the Australians and Canadians were while they were forbidden to mention the names of any of the other corps.