The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1930. A TIMELY PROTEST.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 February 1930, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1930. A TIMELY PROTEST.

I he protest ol the novelist lan Hay against the belittling of the soldier in the late war seems almost over-due. ihe cabled news this week supplied Hay’s outspoken criticism, and seeing the vogue of some of the unsavoury books and plays, it is well to remind the public at large of the other side of the picture. 'The average soldier is not a. sot. nor a debaucher, and it is a poor recognition of his great services in the war to find so much of tho sordid side ol life pushed into tlie front as typical of the- way the war was carried on. The men who went to the war did so with higher ideals than many of the writers have thought to glorify as typical of war’s happenings. A reviewer out it rather well when he wrote: “The sudden outpouring of war books during the past year or so which, in the words of their enthusiastic publishers, are full of “stark realism,” are written with the “utmost frankness, obvious truth, and sincerity” has been, or perhaps it would be more acriurate to say is'being, followed by a reaction against literature dealing with the great conflict. “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been duplicated by several authors of various nationality, “The Case of Sergeant Grisclia” has discovered its counterparts, and poets and professional soldiers have fallen over one another in tlioir efforts to reach the nearest publisher, and through this medium seize- the wideopen ear of the public before the demand for hooks on the war is switched to a demand for more gory thrillers or for novels by the modern Jane Austens

and Florence Barclays.” Fortunately there were many sane writers and a truer picture is being embalmed in some of the works now coming forward, but it is to be regretted that the “best sel- • lers” are those which magnify the 1 sordid side of- the individual. The men who went to the war were regarded as heroes. They were sent off on their national mission with the fullest honors, and the highest econiums, and those who- came back were received with no less adulation, and the country, very properly proceeded to provide for them in a lavish manner. Vet reading some war records we are expected to believe the- worst of human nature,., and that at every turn the soldier was ready to revel in stark realism. On the other side of the picture, one sane writer of things as he saw them, has written more soberly and shall we not say more truthfully. He was a man who accepted his task in the war as a job to be done, neither enjoying the- task excessively nor tabulating his precise chemical, phsyical, and psychological reactions to it. War was not, to him, a glorious business, nor did the sight of blood go to bis head. His impressions are those almost of an observer, sometimes in the front line trenches, when Death held sway, no “sundown, pleasant and serene, ’’ but a, gruesome horror, and sometimes strolling meditatively, as he would in an English lane, in some “comfortably village” where he could wander out without muon fear of being blown to pieces unless a chance shell came, that-way. The ordinary private seedier,' he believed, went to war not because he did not realise to what lie was going, as most writers suggest, hut because he was conscious of the issues at stake and felt most strongly that the war must be fought and won, for the good of Great Britain and for the defence of the-hara-won emancipation of the free peoples of the world from militarism. Of that true type of war book which is alleged to be doing a service to humanity by dwelling on all 'that is horrible in war the author issues no word of condemnation—“they redress the balance of the old literature of war”—but he does consider that this side of the lighting has been overemphasised: “War gave us in full measure much that we would wish to forget in the wav of sorrow and suffering War conferred on us also the opportunity of honourable and distinguished service, of duty faithfully discharged, which carried with it the great gift of the tranquil mind. 1 know that many, I believe that most, soldiers would say at the end of the weary road which for four years they trod, what a certain Tilgrim said after passing through the Slough of Despond and the Valley of the Shadow of Death, “Yet I do' not repent me.” This summary is confirmation of lan Hay’s spirited rejoinder to those who have written sensationally, and dealt as it were, witn isolated cases of individuals rather, tpan of the soldiers as a. whole. In point of fact, the class of literature which is being condemned by Tan Hay, more than belittles the soldier, it libels his life and action In the war and makes a jest of those noble aspirations which prompted the citizen soldier to serve, in the war, not for his own pleasure but to assist in the national safety. The public have a brighter picture in their minds of the brave soldiers’ service, one clear and uistinct from, the blackened character of the objectionable matter certain writers have utilised for their passing fame.