UNSTABLE PERIOD

Waikato Independent, Volume XLV, Issue 6236, 9 May 1949, Page 2

UNSTABLE PERIOD

NEW ZEALAND’S OPPORTUNITY ANZAC DAY ADDRESS BY REV. H. S. SCOTT The speaker at the Anzac Day Memorial Service held in the Theatre Royal, Hamilton, was the Rev. H. S. Scott, of St Andrews Presbyterian Church, Te Awamutu. During the course of his address Mr Scott said: “There have been times in the history of mankind when things seemed fixed, stable and orderly. The opening years of the Christian era were such a time. The power of Rome ruled, all the known world and controlled everything. But sooner or later all such settled periods come to an end, as that one did. Indeed, the world has known no lengthy period of peace since the Roman Empire collapsed in the sth century A.D. We are not living in one of the stable periods of history. We are living in a time of restlessness and experiment. Changes that are revolutionary and far-reaching have taken place, are taking place - and will continue to take place for an unknown length of time. Not all these changes are for the better. This being so, people sometimes speak as if the price paid to win the last two wars was paid in vain. They say, ‘You wonder what they were fighting for.’ The Boers lost the Boer War, but within a few years of their defeat they - gained all the objectives for which they had fought the war. No one in his senses, however, would suggest that if we had lost the First World War or the Second World War that we would, within a few years, have gained what we were defending. If we had lost the first we would have had to submit to German domination. If we had lost the second we would have been under Japanese control now. We are free to develop our own way of life, because these wars were won at the cost of men’s lives. While we don’t altogether forget that, we don’t always appreciate it. This service is an act of commemoration for those from this country who lost their lives in either of the two recent World Wars. The Cenotaph style of war memorial has falleri into disfavour and opinions are divided as to the most fitting type of war memorial. In his novel about the second war “For the Rest of our Lives,” 0. Davin says, ‘Our epitaphs are written in the memories of our friends.’ The epitaphs of some men are of longer duration than that, their exploits being preserved in literature or in the history of a nation, but there is much truth in the novelist’s statement. Memory serves many purposes—to recapture and retain the pleasantness ofl the past, to learn from the lessons of history, to draw inspiration from the sturdy characters who have gone before. ‘You wonder what they were fighting for.’ It’s not the fact that we are living in a restless, chaotic age that. gives point and sting 'to this remark. What gives it meaning is defeatism, hopelessness, class-strife, indifference towards the welfare of the other fellow, wherever he may be —in New Zealand, Europe, China or anywhere else. Whatever they were fighting for, it was not for these to give either peace ‘or stability to things. We are too small a country and our population is too sparse for us the world: The future in the international sphere is grim and uncertain. When you read of conditions in Europe you realise how fortunate we are in New Zealand. When you read of the rate at which the Russian and the Asiatic populations are increasing you ask yourself if we are living in a fool’s paradise, and how loitg we can retain that paradise. What do we do then? Sit back and do nothing, because it is possible that whatever we do will be destroyed? To take that line is to be defeatist, which is to invite oblivion. We have the opportunity in New Zealand to build a society m which the will have his rights and the community its due. How long this opportunity will last no one can foretell. But we have it now because we won the war. To let it slip .by unused because of a disaster which may or may not come, is to betray our heritage. The building of that society is a task in which we can all take part. Peace requires sacrifices as does war. We cannot retain the privileges of democracy without sharing its responsibilities. Those privileges cost money. Defence and social services cost money, as Sir Stafford Cripps has made clear’. Money is forthcoming to fight a war, but there is some reluctance to part with it to maintain peace. To undertake the responsibilities of democracy is. to write an epitaph to the dead that is more than a collection of high-sounding words. To shirk or to ignore those responsibilities is to make memory a fickle jade and a service of commemoration an act of hypocrisy.”