WAR BOOKS AGAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1054, 19 August 1930, Page 8

WAR BOOKS AGAIN

The view of the writer in “The Month,” as well as that of your correspondent. Mr. S. Glading, in their denunciation of recent war books, will not be taken. I hope, as that held by Catholics generally. Men and women nowadays read and judge for themselves in matters of this kind, and considering the praise given to these books during the past months by those held high in public estimation, it is vain for any writer to hope, by a belated expression of opinion, to sway our minds against them. Except Where prudery or narrowmindedness rule, these books are regarded as a valuable contribution to the movement against war and toward peace and international understanding. Soldiers have testified to their being a true and reliable exposure of war and its results, and the public has found in them a means of viewing warfare through the eyes of the combatants. As a Catholic who has. suffered through the war, I am honestly convinced that war books are serving a useful purpose. It is generally coiitceded that our boys went into the last war believing it to be a glorified picnic, and if the suppression of the truth is to continue, as Mr. S. Glading and others seem to desire, then other boys will still think war a picnic. TV'o owe it to youth to give them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As to the opinions of war chaplains who fail to realise the value

of war plays and books. I would quote the opinion of a recent writer in an American peace journal: “It is generally believed now that a padre is as much out of place in the trenches as in a speakeasy.” POXO.