Twenty-Five Years Ago: N.Z. Goes to War

Over 600 Enlist from V.U.C. More Than Half, Killed or Wounded

August 4 returns again; it is a quarter-century since Britain joined with the nations in a feast of suffering and waste. Most of V.U.C.'s present students were not alive on August 4, 1914. In the light of the world situation, it is possible that many of them will not be alive on August 4, 1940.

During the period of the Great War, 624 students and ex-students of V.U.C. enlisted for active service. Of these, 167 were killed or died of wounds or sickness, and 171 others were wounded.

A special "war record" issue of "Spike" was published in August 1920; its preface said: "The University, more than any other of our institutions stands for peace, for its outlook is cosmopolitan and universal. But there are things dearer than peace, things which must be bought at a price."

To us who since have seen how utterly futile was the "war to end war," the latter sentence is pitiful, although the emotionalism reflecting the relief of apparent victory is understandable.

The former sentence, however, we would repeat and emphasise. The acquiring of an outlook cosmopolitan and universal, broad and flexible, should be the most lasting result of attending a University. Such an attitude towards life cannot fail to make for peace. University students, who supposedly represent thinking youth, have it within their power at all times to work creatively for peace. And since it is youth who will be called upon to fight in a war, it its youth alone who can say that wars must cease.

W.