The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1937 TO-MORROW

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20346, 10 November 1937, Page 6

The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1937 TO-MORROW

Armistice Day will be observed in the usual way to-morrow. At the eleventh hour the wheels of industry will stop and for a brief space the nation will halt its innumerable activities. It is a simple act and the more impressive because of that fact. As the hour comes, in one British country after another, this brief silence will be kept, until in London the representatives of the Empire will join with the King at the Cenotaph and a brief service will be held prior to the two minutes’ silence. And in many foreign countries, wherever British people are to be found, this tribute of memory will be paid. There will be a prayer in the hearts of the people that there may be peace in our time. The outlook is forbidding, and war is still being waged with terrible results in more than one country, but these things can only add to the fervour of those who, knowing the awful sufferings of war, long for peace based on law and buttressed by the goodwill of the nations. It is fitting that as Armistice Day comes round the people should remember the price paid in human life and human suffering that freedom might not perish. “No flag is fair if Freedom’s flag be furled.” No one will seek to glorify war or desire to maintain longer the feelings of hostility that marked the years of devastation. The desire to-day is for peace. It may not have found expression in national policies, but among peoples it is strong and ultimately it will triumph. That is the message of the coming day. Those who passed out of life by the path of duty will be remembered by the nation, all that they did and all they attempted to do will not be forgotten, but in the remembrance will come a renewed determination to strive with ever greater zeal for the coming of peace on earth. A sorely distracted world needs it more than ever and it can come only from the strong will of the peoples, expressed through their Governments. To remember those who in the heyday of youth died that freedom might not die, is in every way fitting, but the remembrance must spur the nation and the Empire to greater efforts in the cause of peace. This is the greatest of all the unfinished tasks, and in the brief silence at 11 o’clock tomorrow there should be in the hearts of people a rededication to its achievement.