LADY OXFORD* is an unfortunate person. Whenever she does the right thing, she invariably does it in the worst possible way; whenever she speaks or writes wisdom, she qualifies it with folly. In a letter to the Times she suggests that it would be better that the clergy, “instead of interfering with people who wish to dance on Armistice Day, should raise a voice against the erecting of hideous and expensive war memorials that have gone far to spoil our villages.” The letter was obviously inspired by the memorial recently erected at Hyde Park Corner, where a monster stone howitzer, the effigy of an instrument of death, has been set up as a tribute to the men of the Royal Artillery who gave their lives for their country. The suggestion that it implies is, of course, that it is only by killing that the killed can properly be remembered — a pagan sentiment, against which Lady Oxford did well to protest. But when she refers to the “hideous and expensive war memorials” in English villages, she is, as is her habit, using the language of absurd and uncontrolled exaggeration. For the greater part, the village war memorials are simple, tasteful, and appropriate, paid for with the pence of the sorrowing bereaved in memory of their beloved dead. In many a village, in every part of England, the memorial is a simple Calvary, and in bringing back the image of our Lord to the countryside, with its constant and rarely ignored demand on the courteous homage of the passer-by, the war has given us one recompense for the havoc that it wrought, and the many troubles and evils that have come in its train.

*often known as Margot Asquith

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