ATTACK ON WAR BOOKS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18491, 5 February 1930, Page 9

ATTACK ON WAR BOOKS.

Belittling The Soldier. lAN HAY’S STRONG PROTEST. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, February 3. Major John Hay Beith, better known as lan Hay, the novelist, when addressing a congregation of men at Coventry Cathedral, made a spirited protest against the books which belittle the soldier. "It is said that a proper hatred of war has recently been developed, but natural reprobation of war is being allowed to obscure our judgment to such an extent that we are inclined to transfer the horror of war itself to the men who fought,” he said. “The soldier suffers more ups and downs in popular esteem than any other man. He cannot help feeling that he is being unnecessarily belittled at present; indeed, he is being insulted. "We are submerged by a flood of so-called war books which depict the men who fought for us in the late war. 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, even in the face of death itself. In order to express a genuine horror of war, it is sometimes said to be a representative picture of a British soldier when one is depicted as keeping up his courage by drink. Would-be realists have overlooked the desire of soldiers that they should not be printed in the blackest colour.”

[As an author and playwright, lan Hay, who was once an officer in the Regular Army (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) has been a great success. His book, “The First Hundred Thoussand,” is one of the best known of war books. He followed this with “Carrying On,” and "The Last Million.”]