South Yorkshire Times, November 3rd, 1933
“Mere Mockery ”
It is natural that amid the disappointment occasioned by the failure of the Disarmament Conference there should be a good deal of cynical and despondent talk about the imminence of war and the insincerity of peace professions of all kinds in every quarter. Even our Armistice ceremonies are attacked as part of the prevailing “war mentality.”
“Mere mockery,” “an annual occasion for military display,” “an incitement to youth to seek military glory and patriotic martyrdom,” are among the new criticisms of the custom. It is significant of the neurotic temper of the times that these absurdities should be uttered and not only uttered but received.
The pious custom of remembering those who died for their country—most of them hating war, and longing for peace as passionately as any professional or political pacifist—is surely poor war propaganda. The thoughts that crowd upon us at the Armistice season are not thoughts of war; at such a season we re-dedicate ourselves to the task of making civilisation war-proof.
Who can stand by the monuments of the war victims and entertain a thought of renewed war? In our own land the Armistice season is used to impress on the child mind of our race, the horror, the waste, the cruelty of war, and the imperative need for nation to speak peace unto nation, that civilisation May endure. Such military display as accompanies our Armistice ceremonies—and it is to be found scarcely anywhere but at the central ceremony in Whitehall and in the ceremonies of the Forces themselves—does nothing to obscure or debase this Armistice mood.
The failure at Geneva and the new uprising of militarism in Europe, are reasons for strengthening and deepening our Armistice commemorations, and giving them new emphasis and earnestness. There was never greater need than to-day for insistence on the cost and futility of war. It is when we are gathered round our war memorials that we feel with fullest force of conviction the utter folly and unrelieved tragedy of war.