WAR BOOKS
"SOLDIERS BELITTLED" lAN HAY'S COMMENT (Received Feb. 4, 11 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 3. Major John Hay Beith, better known as "lan Hay," the novelist, addressing a congregation of men at Coventry Cathedral, made a spirited protest against books which belittle the soldier. It was said that a proper hatred of war had recently developed, he declared, but. the natural reprobation of war was being tallowed- to obscure our judgment to such an that we were inclined to transfer the horror of war itself■ .to the men who fought. The soldier suffered more tips and downs in-- popular esteem than any other man. He could not help feeling being unnecessarily belittled at present, and indeed, .being insulted. "We are submerged by a flood of so-called 'war books' which depict the men who fought for us in the kite war," he added. "For the" most part they are depicted as brutes and beasts, living like pigs, and dying like dogs. Some of these books were conceived in dirt and published for the profit that dirt will bring." The most admirable thing in the British soldier was his unconquerable cheerfulness in the utmost squalor and discomfort, and even in the face of danger itself. "In order to express genuine horror of war it is sometimes said to be a representative picture of the British soldier when one is depicted as keeping up his courage by drink. Would: be realists overlooked the soldiers' desire that, he shoul<L v not be printed in the blackest color," concluded Major Beith. i>kv ~. ... ..y jao Hi* i
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Bibliographic details
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17175, 4 February 1930, Page 7
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261WAR BOOKS Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17175, 4 February 1930, Page 7
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