The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1928. AT MENIN GATE.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1928, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1928. AT MENIN GATE.

The impressive service of the pilgrims at Ypres last week, commemorating the sacrifice of those who fell in the Great War, brought back memories. A cable message told us that the impressive two minutes’ silence so affected the multitude that women sobbed and men had difficulty in keeping hack tears. Such was the impelling force of memories which in those crowded seconds, revealed to the mind the story of the past and brought hack poignant recollections of many a deed of arms, of many a "well-remembered face now with the silent host whose memory was being honored. Ypres stood as a great outpost in the war. Round atiout it the war waged practically for the full period. There were few countries fighting on the side of the allies which did not have forces at that great danger point. Round nltout Ypres the allied forces held on, and it was a special pivot in a. notable memorial to commemorate the allied sacrifice in the war, and as the Bishop of York said, was a place for over sacred in the hearts of the British race. The Bishop asked a question in the course of liis occasional address at the recent memorial service, when referring to all the sacrifice of toil and treasure, and the outpouring of the rich, red blood of the nations, he asked was it all worth while? He answered his question himself by saying; “Yes—a thousand times yes. The spirit was active and menacing which used war, or the threat of war as a normal instrument of policy. It had been laid low, dethroned in the very lands where once It seemed to reign. It will soon be renounced in solemn and 1 deliberate pledge by all the nations, who ten years ago were locked in the throes of war. Through the sufferings send

sacrifice of war there has been won, as never before in human history, a settled will to seek peace and ensure it.” The Archbishop added : ‘‘Ten years ago our hearts were full of high purpose and full of hopes for a better and richer life for all our people. What has come to them ? llow do they meet the challenge of tho insecurity of unemployment, of the depression which lies like a blight upon the industrial north of England from which 1 come?” Ho declared that tlio bettering of the life of the British Commonwealth was a cause demanding sacrifices no less real than those which were offered in the stress of war. The words of his Lordship are worth taking account of, and | applied in practice for the purposes of peace, as they were for defence in war time, great things could be occomplished. All good citizens could do much by real co-operation in this, time ol stringency and unemployment. Menin Gate was erected in remembrance. It should stand as a reminder for all time of those who were prepared to make the great -sacrifice for world safety, and should do something in the way of prompting similar self-reliance for national safety and security in this |>eriod of overshadowed peace.