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Hokitika Guardian, 16 November 1927, Page 1

MARSHAL KOCH’S .MEMOIRS. Marshal Moeli’s refusal to produce memoirs, at the urgent invitation ol publishers, shows a most honourable distaste for easy money. Anything of that kind to which he chose to put his name would command an enormous price, hut he conliimcs to write of the past for the future, ami is resolved to leave the result for the next generation. As far as the historical value of his record is concerned, it is obvious that much may be gained by the length and breadth ol a dispassionate survey; it is equally obvious that further separation from the heat ol the moment and the dust ol battle may deprive his manuscript, through continu-

al revision and ivcorrection, ol the spontaneity which quickens a chronicle and makes truth leap from the page on which it would otherwise repose. The .Marshal, it seems, is not plagued by metaphysical doubts about relativity. lie keeps bis work on the march in a confident faith that by takin pains the approach to truth becomes closer and closer. To hold this view is not to he contemptuous of other leaders in the war who have hurried their reflections into print ; after all. they had some time to think it over, and memoirs may as well he writiei before memory grows too dim.—The ■' .Manchester Guardian.”