MILITARY PAGEANTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19766, 14 February 1927, Page 2

MILITARY PAGEANTS

NOTION NOT SECONDED “FOSTERING THE WAR SPIRIT” At a meeting of the Christchurch Presbytery, during the week, the' Rev. F. Robertson moved: “That this Presbytery deplores the undue glorification of militarism in the forthcoming military pageant as contrary to the spirit of the League of Nations.” A suggestion was made that a missionary pageant should be held to counteract the military show. In proposing the motion, Mr. Robertson paid a tribute to the many benefits of such a military pageant for ivs historical interest, its physical value', and the opportunity it gave for aesthetic expression and the fostering of a community spirit, but he deplored the fact that these benefits should be exploited evilly by those people whose only aim was to foster the wax spirit, to rouse the people to a certain state of mind in which commercial interests could get them into a panic, and so drive them into a war. “As a Church,” said Mr. Robertson, “we are in danger of public ridicule. Unless we' stop regretting this and deploring that, people will get the conception that we are a collection of wowsers wasting our time and our breath. Unless we are a good deal more definite in our future actions than we have been in the past we will be held up to ridicule. Usually when we pass a motion deploring something, we just leave it at that and make ourselves ridiculous. A possible counteraction would be a pageant of men maimed in the war, but we can't do that. I suggest that the Church should consider holding a missionary pageant at the same' time. Unless we have an alternative plan it is idle merely to denounce, but I do think that the Church should show its mind in this most important matter.” The motion remained unseconded.