VISCOUNT HAIG’S WORK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20380, 11 April 1928, Page 3

VISCOUNT HAIG’S WORK.

A NATIONAL MEMORIAL. MR BALDWIN’S TRIBUTE. THE. SECRET OP HIS STRENGTH. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 17. In both Houses of Parliament eloquent tributes were paid to the memory ot the late Field Marshal Earl Haig. Mr Baldwin spoke on a motion for the erection ot a monument at the public charge. He said it was not part of his duty to attempt a military appreciation of Lora Haig. He would hazard the prediction, however, that the fame of Lord Haig would grow as the years went by. ~ “ But I can speak of his character, continued the Prime Minister, “ because of character contemporaries can judge. There may be much on which the future will throw its light, but by universal consent his countrymen recognised in him, above all, three things that they always value most in men: Steadfastness, absolute and complete integrity—(cheers) — a man to whom a mean thought or a mean action was impossible ; and, thirdly loyalty to everyone with whom he served —(cheers) —loyalty to all in the army, from the highest to the lowest, and, what is more difficult, loyalty to the civil governing power. —(Cheers.) I say without contradiction that in cases where Lord Haig had to follow orders from the Government, even in cases where he could not fully agree, once h e gave his word to follow those orders he did so with never a thought and never a word of action except absolute loyalty to the duty that lay before him. —(Cheers.) “ A writer—a great gift in every walk 0 { life—he was no speaker. There I sympathise with him. But he could use his pen, and in thos e few words he wrote in the spring of 1918 he was abta to write words that etched themselves into the hearts of every man who read them and of every one of his fellow-countrymen throughout the world. And that pen he never hired.—(Cheers.) It was one he used for purposes that he believed to be right. HAIG AND MILNER.

“ I remember being told some time ago that when Lord Milner went to see him in that terrible spring of 1918, and had to speak to him about the placing of th e British command underneath that of Marshal Foch, he saw Field Marshal Haig alone first of all. He approached the subject not without difficulty. Lord Milner was a sensitive man, and he knew what a British general might feel in this case. But Lord Haig said to him at once: ' Do not think of me or of my position; I only want to win this battle ’ —(cheers) —and so far as his militai service was concerned he served his coun'iy to the end. „

“ Within the last few months—in December, in fact—he rendered valuable services to the Committee of Imperial Defence. We had been studying there a very hard and most difficult problem. There was much difference of opinion, and the service on which we asked him to enlighten us was.a service which required much study and much reflection. He came up to London twice, in November and December, but the help he gave us was invaluable in the quality of the advice, and his great influence brought together a unity of conception amongst those who had been taking very different views. " Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about him was the way in which, immediately the war ended, he effaced himself. He was a man who entered into np controversy. There was no article of any kind, no book justifying himself or attacking others. He knew that no man could be his own advocate before posterity. That character was th e secret of his strength, and I know from talks I have had with men that that bumble personal life of his made itself felt all through the British Army incalculably, and was no small factor in the morale of those great forces.” NATIONAL FUND. The Prime Minister told the House of Commons that the cost of these national memorials varies from £SOOO to £7OOO, That is not a sum which would count materially one way or the other in connection with any scheme for making provision for the welfare of the cx-service-men and their dependents. The Labour ‘Party’s amendment to the resolution asked that a select committtee should be appointed to consider “ the most fitting form of memorial,” in view of Lord Haig’s “ known concern for the comfort and welfare of the ex-servicemen and (heir widows and dependents.” This the House rejected, but Major Cohen, while insisting that a statue is essential, suggested that a national fund might be started to further the magnificent charity to which Lord Haig had devoted his energies since the armistice, and he expressed the hope that the Prime Minister would sign th e appeal. Mr Baldwin gladly accepted this suggestion, spoke warmly in favour of a national fund for ex-serwee-men as the popular memorial to Led Haig, and said that h e would be proud to sign an appeal ns the head of the Government. HOMES FOR EX-SERVICEMEN. The Executive Council of the British Legion had under consideration the proposal for a national fund in memory of Lord Haig. A recommendation was forwarded by the legion to the Prime Minister that there should be a meeting in the Mansion House and that a national appeal should be launched from there. The Lord Mayor had willingly consented to this. The appeal should take the form of memorial homes for ex-servicemen, and these homes schould be spread over the country. This suggestion expressed Lady Haig’s own wishes. Speaking to an old friend at Bemersyde on the day of the burial, Lady Haig said:

“I am very anxious that any memorial shall take the shape of homes for exservicemen and their families. Homes especially for men who are getting on in years and are from one cause or another actually without a home. “I would like these homes to be spread all over the country, and for them to be known as the Douglas Haig Memorial Homes. 1 do not mean institutional homes where large numbers are gathered together. Why not something individual? Every home a separate cottage.”