UNVEILING OF HATCHMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 54, 29 March 1909, Page 3

UNVEILING OF HATCHMENTS.

CEKEJIOXV AT ST. .UAKYS I'ttl'KCH.

On Sunday afternoon there was unveiled at St'. -Mary's Church, New I*l jniouth, three hatchments depleting the colors of three Imperial regiments which took part in the lighting against the Maoris in the war which was raging in this district fifty years ago. The day chosen for the unveiling was peculiarly appropriate, being the anniversary of the Battle ot Witireka, th e dangers ol which were shared by many of those hoary-headed veterans who filled the pews close under these new hatchments. As usual in military and semi-military matters, the public evinced considerable interest in the proceedings, and Si.

Mary's Church was over-crowded. Ami apart from this two or three hundred people lined the street as the veterans, volunteers, and cadets marched into the sacred edifice. There was a capital muster of the veterans, 43 strong, under Captain Standish, many of these soldiers of times past wearing medals and clasps commemorative of the fights in which they had served their Queen. The Tarauaki Rifles, officered by Captain F. T. Bellringer. and Lieutenant Lever, mustered 35 strong!, and the Taranaki Guards similar strength under Captain C. T. Mills, Lieutenants Boon and Beadle. Staff officers present were Lieutenant-Colonel E. X. L. Okey, V.D., Major Malone, Captain-Adjutant Weston, Quartermaster-Captain F. Okey. Captain l'\ C. Kimbell and Captain U. Cock (unattached) were also present. The Public .School Cadets paraded in strong force under Major Sandford, V.D., Captain-Adjutant Johnston, and Quar-termaster-Captain Bary. The companies were represented as follows: Central School No. 1 Company (Captain Mcllroy) 40; No. 2 Company (Lieutenant Day) 31; West End (Lieutenant White) 38; Fitzroy detachment Lieutenant Bayly) 22, The procession to the church was headed by the Battalion Band, under Bandmaster Saunders.

The professional hymn, "The Cod of Abraham Praise,'.' was sung as the clergy entered the church. There were his Lordship the Bishop of Auckland), the Ven. Archdeacon. Walsh, Rev. F. G. Evans, Rev. Hawkins, Rev. Spencer, Kev. Butler, Rev. E. .'Allanson, and Rev. Hanby. The service was intoned by the Rev. F. G. Evans, Vicar of St. Mary's, and Revs. Spencer and Butler read the lessons, from feaaih 11. and I. Peter 11., respectively. The Ven. Archdeacon Walsh delivered an excellent address, taking as his text Isaiah 11., verse 4: "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more." "It is in the time ol storm and stress, of pain and misery," said the preacher, "that the voice of Cod is heard more clearly; and perhaps there never was a time in the world's history in which there was so much storm and stress as that in which the prophet wrote the words of the text. It was one of those

periods which occurred from time to time, in which the war-clouds burst over the earth, a period in which every tie of humanity was broken, every evil passion let loose, and in which men's only idea was to kill and to rob and to destroy. The great eastern empire was pouring out its armed bands and carrying destruction to the ends of the earth; and the smaller nations were broken up and obliterated, their strongholds cast down, and their people given to the sword and carried away into, captivity. On none did the ruin fall more heavily than on the little nation of the Jews. Infinitesimal in number compared with the overwhelming hosts of the invaders, their indomitable courage and their dauntless resolution only served to intensify the agony of the struggle. Again and again it seemed as if all hope were past, and as if no miracle could 'heal the wounds that were bleeding the nation to death. And yet throughout the Jong and bitter agony the voice of God was heard, and the hope of the nation was kept alive through the mouth of His prophets. Beyond all the ruin and confusion they could see a vision of restoration and triumph. The daughter of Zion would rise again from the dust and clothe herself with beauty. The mountain of the Lord's House should lie established in the top of th e mountain and should be exalted above the hills, when out of Zion should go forth the law and the word of God from Jerusalem. Yes, and there was one who, soaring higher than the rest, and with clearer eye scanning a wider horizon, could se c a time coming when all these troubles should be at an end; a time when the war-worn nations tsliould beat rest; when instead of seeking each others destruction every man would be satisfied with the fruits of his own industry; when instead of spending their energy and their talent in the invention of weapons of death they should "beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears in- i •to pruning-hooks; when nation should no longer lift up sword against nation, neither should they learn war any more.' Was this vision of the prophet alto-i cethcr Utopian, an unsubstantiated phantom that vanished as we approached it? Or, if real, were wc any nearer (to it th»n was the prophet when lie anew it afar off! Tim e after time, during th e long centuries that had elapst'd since ibis day, had the war-cloud overshadowed the earth, wave after wave j of discord and bloodshed swept away the slowly rising edifice of civilisation, and well-nigh quenched the light of Christianity. The imagination and ingenuity that should have been exercised in the arts of peace had been diverted to the invention of weapons of war, and of engines of destruction. And," he continued, "it all happens so easily, and no amount of experience prevents the same folly from being committed again and again. A rumor of some disturbance on a frontier, probably greatly exaggerated, results in a punitive expedition that frequently punishes the wrong party. Eetaliation ensues, further outrages are committed on both sides, and the trouble, which might easily have Ibeen settled by an intelligent enquiry into the facts of the cause, develops into a war of extermination. Or some temporary misunderstanding—caused, perhaps, "by the thoughtless utterance of some high-placed personages—is magnified by the so-called politicians who put the interests of their party above the country's honor. The war spirit is nursed* up by the capitalists who tish in troubled wa"t*r>, and by the purveyors of war material who fatten on tlioir country's blood. The whole thing is kept at fever heat by a section of the Press that panders to the worst passions of the people, until the nation is ready to rush into any wild and criminal pdventure. '•We have had our share of these thrang in > T «w Zealand. It is hard for our "younger generation and for newcomers to the colony to realise that this fair country, so full of smiling homesteads and with such an abundant prosperity, should have been within the memory of living men a field of strife and carnage. It is just .",0 years since a dispute over an infinitesimal piece ot land brought into collision two races whose interests were to live together in liarmonv and gradually to evolve themselves into one strong and compact nation fit to overcome the difficulties of colonisation and develop the resources of a beautiful and fertile country. The

dispute might easily lave been settled by the exercise of » little patience ami common sense, but temper was lost, and the war-spirit spread over tiie land. Treaty rights were ignored, and a coiltest commenced which lasted for ten years and spread from shore to shore; whicn cost £12,000,000 of Imperial money and called into the field some 10,000 Imperial troops; which put a cheek upon the development of the country from which it took a generation to recover; which almost extinguished the IMit of Christianity amongst a large section or Maoris, and did more tlia-i) anything clue in modern times to hasten ] the decay of the native race. "It is right that I should state m ihis connection that on the people of Taranaki as a whol e there lies no share an the bloodguiltiness of the war. The ' settlers of Taranaki were the principal sufferers by the war but they did nothing to occasion it; or, at the most, they were helpless actors hi a drama for ■which they were not responsible. In the early days of the colony almost nothing was known to the people in the Old Country of the condition of things out here; and the West of England farmers who formed the hulk of the Taranaki settlers had no idea that anything in the shape of a 'native difficulty' ■would meet them on arrival in their new homes. But when, through no fault of their own, they iound themselves ranged under their country's flag, when they found themselves driven from their tomes and separated from their families, they fought with a stern resolution and a patient heroism that had not many parallels in .the history of our race." It was to the niemory of the men of Taranaki that fell in that lamentable war, as well as to those who came to their assistance, that these hatchments jiad been erected. Hanging on these (hallowed walls, th?y would not only serve to remind us of the \alor of those •*wjip now lay waiting the great roll-call Day, but they would

I God in His incvoy prevent—men would be fou-.id ready to shed their blond in defi'iiee 01' their i-umitry's honor mid that amongst these tin' men of Turnnaki would he ready to elnini u foivmoil pliU'i l . It «u., perhaps Httiiij.' that lie should isay a word as to how the movement for the I'lwtion of the hatchments wainitiated and earned out. It was some

30 years ago that Captain i ; . ('. Rowan, then in command of the Armed Con stabulary station at Whitccliffs was desirous or erecting a memorial to the men of the regiment to which lie had formerly belonged, who had fallen in 111,. war. There wa* n u money available for a stone monument, ami liis idea was

to place a painted tablet over the graves at the entrance of the Itenui cemetery. On his consulting the speaker as to how this might be done, the latter strongly urged him to place the monument in

| the church, where it would be secure 1 from desecration, promising him that, 1 should it take the form of a painth". : he himself would „excute the work on ; Ins providing the panel. To this proposal he gladly agreed, and the result was the hatchment of the 43rd Regiment (the Monmouthshire Light Infantrv) was erected in 1878. An interval of 20 years elapsed, when the members of the tioth Regiment expressed a desire that their corps should be similarly commemorated, which was done. He then made an offer to the vestry oi St. Mary's, that if they would provide the materials he would, if health and leisure permitted, go on with the rest of the series. The work was now done. From tUne to time he contributed an .instalment, until all the various corps engaged in the war—seventeen in all, including both Imperial and colonial forces—together with the friendly Maoris, had each a hatchment erected to the memory of their fallen comrades. The whole set was now completed by the addition of those which were to be unveiled that afternoon in memory of the Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery, and 12th East Suffolk Regiment. One of the priests of the diocese, he remarked, had served with the lastnamed regiment in the recent South African war, and it was a pleasure to have him with them that day. Before concluding, it might be well to take a look towards tlie future, and see if we could not take a lesson from the past. "There was perhaps never a time in the history of mankind when there was such a universal yearning for peace; while at the same time there was perhaps never a time when there was such a widespread preparation for war as there was at the present time. At first eight it looked like a curious anomaly, yet the real fact was that the frantic effort to secure the supremacy of-thg sea, the colossal armaments on land, the ruinous taxation to provide these that was depopulating the older States; all this was but a gigantic blundering effort to secure at any cost the thing that was desired—a blundering and futile effort, as an over-armed peace was at all times the most certain precursor of war. They had got to realise that war was essentially an evil—a foreign and therefore preventable element in the Divine order. Th e matter was left in our own hands, and it was our own fault if the evil continued to exist; for in this as in other things, by an immutable law which we could neither evade- nor overcome, in every branch of the Divine law the evil recoiled on the evildoer; and the pronouncement that 'tiliey that take the sword shall perish with the sword,' was therefore not so much a sentence of punishment as a simple statement of th c rule of cause and effect." There was no race or people that had a right to enslave or exploit another race of people whatever might be their relative difference in civilisation or culture, the Hindoo or the Egyption, the Negro or the Chinaman, had just as good a right to national life and expansion, as the Englishman or the American, thc Frenchman or the German. Such an idea might to many seem quixotic and Utopian, but until we got hold of it and imported it into our international relations, we should be in continuous trouble, and might at any moment precipitate such a convulsion as had never occurred within historic times. ••'We may, of course, liave a war forced upon us, when it will be our duty to fight as our fathers fought before us. But as a general rule the wars we engage in are more or less oi our own making. Whatever may be the mistakes of our rulers, or however wilful the machinations of our politicians' or of interested parties, no war can now occur without the will and co-operation of the people. The day has. gone by whin men ' were dragged from their homes and their peaceful avocations to fight under the banner of their feudal lord.- If we will only try to check our national combination; if we will be content with our Own share of God's bounty, and strive to extend to others the blessings we have ourselves received, we shall soon see a new era dawn upon this war-worn world —an era of peace and goodwill, or happiness and prosperity such as God lias designed for his people, and we shall be approaching measureably nearer to the time when men shall beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks, when nation shall no lon«er raise sword against nation, neither shall thev learn war any more." The Lord Bishop offered prayers for the armv and navy and for our country, after winch tile hatchments were unveiled as follows:—Hatchment in memory of thc men of the Royal Engineers, by Lieutenant T. McGuinness; hatchment in memory of the men of the Royal Artillery, by Sergt.-Major A. Hood; hatchment in memory of the men of the 12th Regiment, by Captain Mace, N.Z.C. After a prayer of dedication, and the pronouncement of thc blessing, the National Anthem was sung by the congregation. A bugle call, "The Last (Post, concluded the service. At the conclusion of the service, the volunteers, cadets, and lastly the veterans, marched past the soldiers' graves in the churchyard, saluting as they passed In the ca'se of the veterans the ceremony WU no empty one, as, with bared 'heads and manv with tottering steps, , they slowly paced beside the restingplace of many comrades-in-arms. |