A LEGACY OF HATE.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1917, Page 6

A LEGACY OF HATE.

HOW SHALL WE REG ARE THE I GERMANS? THE SOLDIER'S EXAMPLE. i M Maurice Maeterlinck-, the Relgian essayist and dramatist, wrote a striking essay for the Parisian magazine Les • Annalcs, on "The War's Legacy of Hatred" The following translation" was prepared for tiie New 'York Times Current History:— v j Before we reach the end of this war, j whose da.ys of grief and terror now seem j to be numbered, let us weigh for the j last time in our minds the words of ; hatred and malediction which it has so ( often wrung from us. , We have xo deal with the. strangest of ■ enemies. He has deliberately, scientific- , ally, in full'possession of'his senses, without necessity or excuse, revived all i the crimes which'we had believed to be ] forever buried in the barbarous past. He has trampled under foot all- the precepts which the human race had so painfully gleaned out of the cruel dark- j nesses of its origin; he has violated all the laws of justice, of humanity, of loyalty, of honor, from the highest, which almost touch the divine, to the simplest and most elementary, .vhieh still appertain to the lower orders, There is no longer any doubt on this point; the proof of it has been established and re-estanlished, the certitude definitively aeouired.

But, on the othei liaiui, it is no less certain that the enemy ha; displayed virtues which it'would not be right for us to deny; for one honors one's self by recognising.the .valor of those whom one combat?. He has gone fr death in deep, compact, disciplined masses, with a blind, obstinate, hopeless heroism, Tor which history furnishes no example equally, sombre, and which often has compelled our admiration and our pity.

I am well aware that this heroism is rot like that which ;e love. For us heioisin should be, above all, voluntary, frtfcvfrom all restraint, active, ardent, joyous, spontaneous.; whereas with them fct is mixed with much of servility, of passivity, of sadness, of gloomy, ignorant mass submission, and of fears more or iess base. Yet in a moment of peril these, distinctions vanish foi the most part; no force on earth could drive toward death a nation that did not have within itself the will' to ;onfront death. Our soldiers have not deceived themselves on this .point. Atl< those who return from the trenches. They execrate the enemy; they have a horror of the aggressor,, unjust, arrogant, gross, too often cruel and perfidious; they do not hate the man, they pity him; and, after the battle, in the (defenceless wounded o'' the disarmed "prisoner, they recognise with astonishment a brother in misery who, like themselves has been trying to do his duty, and \:)fo lias laws which he considers high and necessary. Underneath the intoloratc enemy they sec the unfortunate mortal who likewise is bearing the burden, of life. Leaving o\:t of atcc unt the unpardonable aggression and the inexpiable violation of"treaties, very little is lacking to make this war, despite its madness, a bloody but magnificent testimonial of grandeur, of heroism, of the spirit bi sacrifice! Humanity was ready to raise itself above itself, to surpass all that it liad achieved up to tfiii hour. And it lias done it. We bad not known of latiuns that ivere capable, through months and years, of renouncing then •est, their security, their wealth, their ivc-11-being, all that they possessed and oved, even Me itself, to accomplish A'hat they believed to be their duty. iVe had never seen whole nations that ,vere able to understand and admit that. ;he happiness of each of those lying at the moment of trial does not count when it is a question of the lior.ot of those no longer living or of the happiiess of those not yet living. Here we stand on summits that had never before been attained. And if. ■in the part of .our enemies this uiicximpled renunciation had not been poi ioned at-its source, if the war which hey wage against us had been as beaut:'ul, as loyal, Rs generous ,as chivalrous is that which we wage against them. >ne lnislit 'jciieve that it was to he the ast war, and that it was to end, net n mortal combat, but in the awakening 'rom a bad dream with a noble and 'raterna! astonishment. They have not jermitted this to be so; and it is their leception we may r.est assured, that the 'uture will have the greatest difficulty n pardoning. Now, what are we going :o do? Must wc go on hating to the ■nd of our days'/ Hatred is the hcavi•st load that man can bear on tins iarth, and we should be.bowed down >'y the burden. Cut," on the other band, ve do not wish to be again the victims >f trust and love. Here once more our ■nldicrß, in their clear-eyed simplicity ind nearness to truth, anticipate the uture and teach us what is best to do ind not to do. As we have seen, they [o not hate the individual, but they do lot trust him. They do not see the uiman being in nim until he is without irms T'hev know from sad experience hat as long as he has weapons lie docs Kit resist the mad impulse to injure, o lietrav, to kill, and that he. becomes rood oni'v when he is powerless. Is ne thus bv nature, or has lie been mule thus by Uiosu who lead h.mi., f,,ve the chiefs carried away the whole latiou, or has the whole nation men ts chiefs? - Have the leaded made ll.n >eople like themselves, or have the pe< - ,le chose.,, the leaders and supported ;heni onl'v because they rcsembleu the.nelves' Did the disease come from beow, or from above, or was it everyvhcre'' This is the great obscure point ,f the'awful adventure. Tt is not easy ,o explain, and it is still less easy to ind an excuse. If they prove that they have been tieeived and corrupted by their masters ;hey are proving at the same time thai hey are less intelligent, less firm j rronnded in justice, honor and humanity -in a word, less civilised—tlinn those vhom they pretend to have a right to ,i.i)iu«ate in the name ot a superiority vhich their own demonstration annil.iates- on the other hand if they do not irdvo that their errors, their perhd.es, mil their cruelties, which it is no onger iossible to deny, are to be imputed solei to theii masters, these sins all biic.< ,po„ their own heads with all their pitiess weight. I do not know how tliey viil escape the jaws of this dilemma, ,or what .lecision will be rendered by he future, which is wiser than the past ven as the morning, to quote the old Slavic proverb, is wiser'than the night, .feanwhile let us imitate the prudence f our admirable soldiers, who know beter than we do what path to follow