I, who am privileged to write this brief token of honour and admiration for men whose fine character and splendid courage have been chronicled by infinitely worthier pens than mine, now plead this noble cause, as worthy of the strongest and most loving support of every man, woman and child in the historic county of Worcestershire, and I want the spirit of a fine and active enthusiasm to “catch on” and spread like a prairie fire, not only through Worcestershire, but even farther afield. Why should not every county have its own soldiers’ and sailors’ settlement? It’s own well-organised, picturesque haven and “Pleasaunce of Peace”? It is impossible that any of us should sit down in satisfied comfort at the close of the war and do nothing for the men who have done so much for our defence. A new “Garden City” would hardly be spacious enough to provide them with their well-earned ease—and shall we hesitate to build them villages? Villages so artistically and prettily planned, so dainty and restful that the wandering stranger in future years shall pause, enchanted, to ask what influences have been at work to create such little Edens on earth. And he will be told:—
“These are the homes of heroes!—here dwell men who faced death for duty’s sake and Britain’s honour—and Britain has given them what she can to prove her gratitude, and to make their remaining lives sweet.”
For, of every man that has fought for us in this terrific World-Struggle for nobler freedom and higher ideals, it can be said with Shakespeare,—
“The blood that he hath lost, he dropp’d it for his country,
And what is left, to lose it by his country,
Were to us all that do’t and suffer it
A brand to the end of the world!”