FRIEND AND FOE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 647, 26 April 1929, Page 10

FRIEND AND FOE

UNITY IN DEATH INSPIRATION TO SERVICE Press Association IN ELLINGTON. Thursday. The sword divides; the cross unites. 'V’OBLE and inspiring sentiments were expressed by the GovernorGeneral, Sir Charles Fergusson. in his address to a large crowd at the cenotaph in front of Parliament Buildings. Afterwards he laid the foun-dation-stone of the Wellington Citizens’ War Memorial. “It is but fitting.” said Sir Charles, “that on this day we should inaugurate something which will stand as an inspiration for generations to come. “Is it the call to service? Yes, undoubtedly. We remember how these men went unhesitatingly at the call of duty. Is it the call to noble deeds’ Again, yes, for never in the history of the world has a greater epic been written, and in those noble deeds is inspiration for all and every boy and girl.” His Excellency related a scene at Cambrai in October, 191 S. when at the end of four years’ occupation the Germans were driven from it by the Allies. There at Cambrai was a large cemetery' planned by a German general. In it were laid without distinction Germans, English, French, Canadians, Indians, New South Africans, Australians, Russians and Italians. Each grave was carefully set out and had at the head a stone and a cross. The cross bor* the name, number and regiment of the dead soldier. UNFORGETTABLE SCENE At the west end of the cemetery was a huge cross, and on it in four languages had been written these words: “The sword divides; the cross unite?.'* As the setting sun threw the shadow of this cross over the cemetery, it was an unforgettable scene. Remember, continued Sir Charles, it was a German general who had planned that cemetery scene. Such a scene had in it two messages. A message of great comfort to those who had lost their dear ones in their great love and selfsacrifice. The realisation of that roessage would do more to end war than any league or pact or formqja. War might be, and indeed was, inevitable so long as human nature was what it was, but those things that caused war, jealousy, pride, greed and bitterness, would, if eliminated from the individual mind, react on tho whole people and all nations and go a long way toward ending war. The memory of such a scene as he saw ac Cambrai would help to do that. Those men who had done most to advance the world, concluded Sip Charles, had been those who had most loved their fellow-men. He asked them to remember the words of Lincoln: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting place among ourselves and with all nations.'’