The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1929 RECEPTION TO THE EMDEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 670, 23 May 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1929 RECEPTION TO THE EMDEN

WHAT sort of reception should be given to the German cruiser Emden on her arrival at Auckland next month ’ It is much easier to answer that question beyond any reasonable argument than to say definitely what nature the reception may assume. The question must be considered seriously by the community and answered in such a manner as to prove that Auckland knov s how to meet a delicate test of its hospitality and its sense of international amity. The right thing must he done even though its doing may he sentimentally a hard task. It is easy to understand and sympathise with the embarrassment of the Mayor and other representative citizens in circumstances which create a social problem for the whole community. Mr. Baildon has requested the Government to give a lead on the subject and indicate the extent to which the city may he called on to receive and entertain the visitors. Unless the Government fails to recognise a plain duty, its advice simply will he to exercise perfect courtesy and officially welcome the Germans as official representatives of a friendly nation. No other advice need be expected, and there must he nothing less on Auckland s part than to accept it and carry 7 it out without any churlishness 01 that coldness which is difficult to dissociate from memories of days and deeds not easily forgotten and most difficult to forgive. Perhaps the greatest difficulty will he to extend anything more than correct and essential courtesy. It still is impossible to expect or even to imagine that the thousands of Auckland citizens whose remembrance of the war and its most tragic effects is poignant and bitter will hail the officers and men ol the Emden as welcome friends, hut neither poignancy nor bitterness should find any expression in a disagreeable reception to visitors whose embarrassment also will be acute and something of a trial to sailors who must do their duty in resuming friendly relationship with former enemies. Of course, it may he said that they need not have come this way just yet, but that sort of hostile argument will not help much or go far toward eliminating an enmity in sentiment that must soon or later he eliminated if all nations are really honest in their avowed desire for world peace and a new era of more tolerant international friendship. Thus, the broadest outlook possible must he taken by this community, and particularly by those with the greatest personal reason for hating Germans or anything associated with Germany 7. But even hatred with the best of reasons must he subdued and finally dispelled in time or it will lead to active hostility. It has to be considered now whether that time has arrived. The war that aroused hatred to a pitch of rage without a parallel in history has itself become a thing of the past, though its ravages unfortunately still persit and will linger at the least throughout the lifetime of the present generation. Still, the cause of it all is over, and all the nations that were affected by it and plunged into economic ruin and misery are now trying to forget its worst evils and effects and to construct something better for the maintenance of universal peace and a reasonable amity. New Zealand cannot stand aside, and since Auckland has been called upon to represent the Dominion’s attitude toward the representatives of a former enemy nation, this community must forget the past and, in officially welcoming the Emden’s complement, look to the future. It is not necessary now to discuss what the first Emden did or failed to do, or to observe that some of the new Emden’s officers took an active part in a ruthless war. Like our own soldiers and sailors they did their duty and had nothing whatever to do with the policy that made their duty destructive. And there are many people in Germany who still remember the pinching effects of the British Navy’s grim blockade. But all these things are over and should he done with ten years after their perpetration. Therefore it is the clear duty of Auckland to give its German visitors a hospitable reception.