MAGNIFICENT SPIRIT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4232, 17 January 1940, Page 11

MAGNIFICENT SPIRIT

THE FRENCH IN WAR TIME. “My business is to give my testimony to the magnificent spirit of the the French people in this extraordinary upheaval of all their customs and ways of living. They are graver than in 1914,” writes Mr Sisley Huddleston in the “Contemporary Review.” “They remember what war means—its hideous toll of human life, of human liberty, of human decency, of human civilisation. And they have no illusions about the future. It seems highly probable that we must not expect ever again to return to the conditions we have known. Everything is in the melting-pot, and what will come out of it can hardly be guessed. But this is sure; that the French people who, from time to time, seem to incur the reproach of frivolity and irresponsibility, are in reality the most sober and the most courageous people in Europe. Nowhere do I hear complaints or vain repinings. Everywhere there is a determination to adapt themselves to the new conditions, and to do whatever is conceived to be their duty. Such a people, with such a spirit, cannot disappoint the hopes we try ito retain in the destiny of mankind.”