The Valour of the Soldier

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1922, Page 4

The Valour of the Soldier

REV'. DR" GIBB’S REMARKS,

CRITICISM AND A REPLY

WELLINGTON, June 2(5

j A good deal of indignation has been privately expressed here, and even by members of his own flock, at some remarks recently made by the Rev. Dr | Gibb in an address to Victoria Col--1 lege students. Public protest has now been made against the tenets of Dr ! Gibb by Mr J. J. Firth, C.M.G.. who I was the popular and able head for I many years of Wellington College. Mr 1 Firtii was speaking to the Old Boys’

"J Association. I “Many of you,” he said “are rej turned soldiers, and if you saw a paraI graph which appeared in the report jof a lecture in Wellington about a • week ago. you must have been pretty ! nearly a.s indignant as I was. The lecturcr is said to have quoted from Gihhotl’s “Decline and Kail of the Roman Empire,'” this sentence: “The courage of a soldier is found to ho the kheapfst and most common/ quality, of human nature.” That surely does , not come well from anyone who stayed at home, who did not go to the front.” I A voice; Name. | Mr Firth; No, sir. Do you doubt .the'report? i A voice; 1 should like to know who . had ihe temerity to make the statej incut.

Mr Fifth; It is from the report of a lecture by the Rev. Dr Gibb at A ietoria College. Mr Firth added that ho was sure that most of those who stayed at home would not subscribe to the sentence quoted. Mr Firth quoted Bourdillion’s well-known war poem about the sailors and soldiers who in the war laid down their lives for the nation. He also quoted Sir James Barrie’s remarks on 'courage,” when he was recently installed a.s "Rector of St Andrew’s 1 niversity, and added that lie was incliu'e, to tli■ iik that the majority of those present would favour the sentiments of Sir .Tames Barrie rather than those of Dr Gibb.

Mr Firth’s brief speech was received with loud applause. In this evening’s paper, Dr Gihli writes a long letter in reply, and suggests that he has been misinterpreted, lie states seriatim the objects of the 'league of Nations Union, and says that, he did not speak disparagingly of the soldiers. He adds that lie supposes “That by cheapest. Gibbon meant that throughout the centuries it. has always been found quite an easy , thing to hire men to fight, even at the wretched rate of remuneration paid to the private soldier. Readers of , Carlyle will remember how often he j -remarks on the amazing fact that for a few pence a day. men could he readily i hired to stand up and he shot at.” 1 Dismissing this. Dr Gibb continues, “T , argued that there is no need of war and battlefields to make men brave: it is in them. The Great War abundantly proved this, and yet I added the admission that I could never read oi deeds that Walter Scott loved to call deeds of derrindo. without a thrill «l wonder and admiration. Will you Ft me add't<> this already too long letter expression of my own personal conviction that the next international conflict (if another international conflict there is to lie) will! sweep the hoard? D is a small thing that 1 am convinced of. tin's, hut the*, most eminent states- ; men. publicists, and ecclesiastical lead- , ers of Britain and the* United States / have with a gravity and emphasis that cannot he exaggerated again and a.ain assured the world that another great war will utterly destroy western civilisation. Western civilisation means' tin* white race's. Vvhat. 1 ask inysell and cverv thinking man. is the use ol preparing for a conflict, which, should 1 il conic, will bring the western powers to the* dust and probably relegate the | while races to a subordinate and infer- I ior place among the peoples of the earth? If Armageddon conics again, it. does not seem 11s if it will matter much what we do or refrain from doing; we shall ho overwhelmed beneath the ruins of a shattered world. Therefore 1 hold Hint all predictions of future. wars and preparations for the same arc* utterly mischovious, and in- j deed deadly. They tend to precipitate* the calamity they aim at preventing. The Christian Church, fights to set its face like a flint against war. It ought to talk peace and peace only. For myself I am too much a patriot to have* either lot or part in a policy of armamcjit.s s>.i\d Warlike preparations—a policy which, if generally adopted, will bring a disastrous eclipse upon th<‘ British Empire and every civilised nation of the' globe.”