TO ELIMINATE WAR

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 71, 26 April 1929, Page 7

TO ELIMINATE WAR

Per Press Association.

ADDRESS BY GOVERNORGENERAL. THE CEMETEIIY AT CAMBRAI.

WELLINGTON, Last night. Oue of the hirgest and mosfc i-epre-sentative assemhlages of returned soldiei'.s and tlic general public since the Anzac Day services wero instituted gathered tliis morning at ihe Cenotaoh u]ipositc Parliament Buildings, wliere they were nddressod hy the GovernorGeneral, Sir Charles Fergusson, just prior to his laying the foundation stone of the IVclJington Citizens' War Mcmorial. IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT. Y e looked on this day now, lie said, in a difierent light Irom when it was inaugurated. We thought less of the pain, the agonies and the miserics of that time, and more of tlie deeds of aohle self-saerifiee, and it was right that these should he rememliered. "It is hnt fitting," fontinued Sir Charles, rcferring to IVellington's war memorial, "that 011 this day we should inuiigurate something which will .stand as an inspiration for the generations still to corne. It is not that we are Ikojv to forget those who died — their meinories are ever fresh to us — but there are the young people who are eomiiig fni, and we are anxious that they wiil get from this monument some oi" its in.spiration. And what is that inspiration ? Is it tlie eall to service? Yes. undouhtedly. 5Ve remember how these mon went unhesitatingly at the eall nf duty. Ts it the eall to noble deeds? Again, yes, for never in tho history of the world has a. greater opio heen writton, and in tliose nohle deeds is inspiration for all and every boy and girl. Rightly linderstood, this memorial will rovolutionise mankind." UNITED BY THE GROSS.

In lllustration of this His Excellency related a sccno at Camlirai in Oetolier, 1918, when, at the cnd oi" four years' occnpation, the Germans were driven from it hy the Allies. There at Cambrai was a. large eemetery, planned hy it German general. I11 it were laid without cli.stinetion Germans, English, Freneh, Caiiadians, Indiaiis, New Zealanders, South Afrieans, Australians, Russians and italians, oaeli grave earefully .set out and liaving at tlie hase a stone and a eross, the eross bcaring tlie naitie, number and regiment of tlio dead soldier. At the west end of the eemetery was 1 a liuge eross, and 011 it, in four lan- ! guages, liad heen written these words : "Tlie Sword Divides; the ('ross Uuites." As tlie setting sun tlirew the sliadow of tlio eross over tlie eemetery it was an unforgettahle sceue. "Reliieinber," he said, "it was a Gennan general who had planned that eemetery scone." WHAT MEMORY WOULD DO. Such a scene had in it two messages — a liiessage of great comfort to those who had lost their dear ones 111 their great lovo and self-sacrifice. The realisation of that message would do more to end the war than any league or pact or formuhi. AVar might, and indeecl was, inevitable so long as liuman nature was what it was, but those tliings that caused war — jealousv, pride, greed, bitterness — would, if eliminated from tlie individual mind, react in the whole people and all nations, and go a long way towards ending war. The memory of such a scene as he saw at Cambrai would lielp to do that. "Those mon who have done most to ndvance the "world," concluded Sir Charles, "have been those who have most loved their fellow man." Ile asked tliem to remember the words of Lincoln : "AVith malice towards none with. oharity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in to bind up the nations' wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans, to do all whieh may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." |