"CONCEIVED IN DIRT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 888, 4 February 1930, Page 9

"CONCEIVED IN DIRT”

SLASHING ATTACK ON WAR BOOKS INSULT TO SOLDIERS United r. A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Reed. 0.5 a.m. LONDON, Monday. Major John Hay Beith, in addressing a congregation of men at Coventry Cathedral, entered a spirited protest against books which belittle the soldier. It was said that a proper hatred of war had been recently developed, but the natural reprobation of war was being allowed to obscure our judgment to such an extent that we - were inclined to transfer the horror of war itself to the men who fought. The soldier suffered more ups and downs in the popular esteem than any man. He could not help feeling being unnecessarily belittled at present; indeed, being insulted. We w'ere submerged by a flood of so-called war books which depicted men who fought for us in the late war for the most part as brutes and beasts, living like pigs, and dying like dogs. Some of these books were con- • ceived in dirt and published for the profit that dirt* will bring. The most admirable thing in a British soldier was his unconquerable cheerfulness in the utmost squalor and discomfort, and even in the face of death itself. In order to express the genuine horror, it w'as the soldier’-s desire that it should not be printed ir its blackest colour.” Major John Hay Beitli, popularly known by the pen-name lan Hav, is a prominent figure in English military circles, as well as a widely known novelist and playwright. He was born in 1876, after his education at Cambridge he served in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as captain, and in the Ninth Division of the British Expeditionary Force, receiving the Military Cross and being mentioned in dispatches during the Great War. In 19IS he received the honour C.B.E. He is now in the Regular Army Reserve of Officers. To the pen of lan Hay the world owes tribute for some notable books, prominent among which are “The First Hundred Thousand,” “Carrying On.” “The Last Million,” and “A Knight on Wheels.” lie collaborated with some famed novelists in writing popular plays, among which were “Tilly of Bloomsbury” and “A Damsel in Distress.”