IF BRITAIN DISARMED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 101, 27 April 1912, Page 13

IF BRITAIN DISARMED.

[The following article contains the opposIng views of a number of eminent British journalists and others on the question whether disarmament of the British Army and Xavy for home purposes, even if practicable, would be desirable?]

In the good old days, when warfare, even organised warfare, was simply an affair of generalship, and the commissariat usually looked after itself as ie went along, a man had only to shoulder his arquebus or his pike and be off to the wars. As long as fighting lasted the man's family were deprived of his services as a wage-earner; when peace came all was on its old footing; the soldiers went 'back to work and all expenses ceased for King and people.

We are a long way off, in this twentieth century, from the good old days. Peace, once the cheapest of commodities, has now grown into a most expensive one. We have now had ten years of it, and it has cost John Bull more than seven hundred million pounds sterling! Think of what ten years of peace would have meant even in Queen Anne's day—whiit it actually >lid mean in the reign of George I.—what economy., what retrenchment!—when the small standing army was set to road-making and bridge-build-ing, and virtually nothing was spent on armaments. As to the cost of a peace establishment to Europe to-day, the figures are positively staggering.

Nowadays, on some quiet, secluded country road you may see a squad of uniformed men, mounted, in charge of a file of gun-carriages. On these carriages you may distinguish powerful engines of destruction — cannons, mortars, and howitzers. Such weapons would have struck terror to the hearts of our own fathers—to-day amongst the initiated they excite only a smile. For though they cost a great deal of money and arc as good as they ever were, military science has decreed that they are obsolete

and therefore useless. They are bound ! for the scrap-heap, to be sold as old junk, ! or to fulfil some peaceful purpose at home. Or it may be that in some pleasant harbour a cruiser or destroyer is seen, ' still young, still powerful. buj> now superannuated, dismissed from the navy, and regarded by even the most callow subaltern with contempt. Tens of thousands of pounds went to its building, but now as an active asset it has all but been wiped off the Admiralty lists of our ■ fighting force. i Seventy millions a year! Sever nun- i dred'millions in a single decade! That seems an enormous sum of money to throw away on the off-chance of some other country wishing to fight us. But is it an off-chance ? Everybody. knows that the possibility of war is by no means so remote as the peace party would occasionally have us believe; and. considering the great wealth of Britain' at stake, even so large a sum as seventy millions is not too large a price to pay, not to ensure peace—that is impossible —but to ensure that we should meet our antagonists on more or less even terms. We might not prevent his

bombarding London and sacking the Bank of England and the Royal Palaces, but at least the way would not be made as smooth for him as was that of the Dutch fleet in 1666, or the German army through France in 1870. No; the only way it could be saved would be by inducing other nations to stop spending. If, by virtue of some brilliant stroke of statesmanship, ea-ch ot the six great Powers could be induced to agree to a suspension of naval and military preparations for a period of ten years, merely maintaining the ships now afloat, disbanding every regiment not actually necessary in maintaining order, then, "and not till then, would the present terrific burden of armaments disappear from the shoulders of John Bull. "I believe," writes Lord Weardale, "that stfch a consummation is not only possible, but imminent. The men and the women of Europe are gi owing heartily sick of the sacrifice, and disbandment and disarmament may come sooner than many of us imagine." But is it thrown away—this huge portion of the nation's pecuniary resources? Is war an unmitigated evil? Is the maintenance of gigantic armaments without a corresponding advantage to the community? Able historians have alleged, indeed, that war is as necessary to a high type of civilisation as. religion or literature, that it exerts an ennobling and stimulating influence upon society, that it fosters chivalry, and is an outlet for the spirit of adventure. Everybody knows that there are a number of keen observers, chiefly literary men and iournalists, who are especially interested in this question of peace and disarmament. It occurred to us, therefore, to ask a number of these gentlemen who have taken the most lively interest in this most important matter to tell us briefly what advantages or disadvantages they expected would flow from universal peace and disarmament. But before we give their views it is well to emphasise certain benefits which would accrue, and certain profound social changes which would happen, to the nation from a general disarmament, and we have entrusted this part of the task to Mr. George Morrow, whose pictures are at once diagrammatic and epigrammatic. The inscriptions beneath the illustrations speak for themselves. For, supposing it came —this era of peace, of universal disarmament and disbandment. It is well to look at both sides of the question. Abolish the Army and Navy, and you would throw at least a hundred and seventy thousand soldiers and a hundred and thirty thousand sailors out of employment— that is to say, if you let the Army in Tmlia alone, its cost to be borne by the Indian taxpayer. Put you would throw :i far greater number of men loose upon ?ocietv thin that. You would have to add nnother fifty thousand workmen shir>b»ilders. tailors, art'sans of pvery description, who flouri-sh along with the King's forces. In other words. \on would have not less than three hundred

and fifty thousand men to provide employment for, with a minimum pay-roll of, say, twenty-five million pounds.

There are few men who have taken a more vivid part in the modern movement for peace than Mr. Norman Ang-ell, the author of "The Great Illusion." Mr. Angell writes to deprecate .any idea on his part of a universal peace and general military disarmament propaganda:—

About one-third of the worlds surfaco is stni occupied by semi-civilieeil peoples, among whom police work must probnnly for many years take the form of military foroc. The phrase " Universal I'rarc " suggests the cessation of competition, elec-

■ tions, strikes, political differences, Su/Tra- < i gette raids. Home Rule oratory, and many c i other things that nobody outside a lunatic i ! asylum ever expects to see cease. i I i But all this has nothing whatever to do , I with what the European Pacifist movement | alms at: the cessation of the futile military ] rivalry of the great civilised European , States. What have vague problems of , " Universal Peace" to do with the very i practical, insistent fact that England ami Germany are in danger of going to war over nothing at all? That if they went to war j ' iit would be a disaster to both: that the | war would settle nothing, whichever won; ; . ' and that the whole conflict is a ridiculous • and artificial one due to the survival of ' obsolete ideas concerning what one civilised •' nation can accomplish by the domination ' of another? What has this outrageously , 1 I ridiculous matter of the " inevitable " con- ; I flict with Germany to do with problems ; like the maintenance of order in India or : ■ Asia? We do not need to maintain order P in Germany, and Germany does not need to ,' maintain order in England. To put the two j 1 problems on the same plane is to be guilty • of the muddle-headed generalisations which ■we usually associate -with savages or ' children. We shall avoid these senseless conflicts ( in Europe, and 'the absurd burden to which , they give rise when European opinion un- • i derstands a little more what it is nil about; j when it is capable of avoiding just the sort , of confusion at which I have hinted. And , ■that is the work which some, of us. In the s three principal countries -of—Ku-rope—Ens- " kind. Germany,.-and jfrance-f-are frying 'to ] bring about, a political .TeftUWMleß,'.Yfhldx i will do for the <prableni of neeies*" flrtnu- ] meats what the religious and intellectual .

.reform of the seventeenth nun eighteenth centuries did for the problem of religious oppression. : As to whether the total abolition of th« Navy and Army would be favourable to literature, the arts, and culture generally. or the reverse, their .total abolition, as I have explained, does not come into «uy problem which need concern us. That their very considerable redaction— say to about one-tenth of their present scale—would ad- . , veraely affect general culture I do net sui>-1 pose any man In his senses would urge; for an instant. . Personally, I do not believe that a war-] like society is superior -to a peaceful one. ' Venezuela is never six months without a !war; Canada has not had one for one hunIdred years. I do not 'believe Venezuela is I superior to Canada, or that a Highly mili- : tarised nation like Turkey is superior to ian industrial one like England or (iermany. :'the latter country, by the way, being the only considerable country in the world which has .had no war for fupty years. i Mr. A. H. Bur<joyne, M.P., the promin- ] ent naval authority, scouts the idea of the possibility of disarmament or its de-1 sirability:— j Until national competition Ju commerce,' manhood, or, at any rate, universal expansion, comes to an end, or has been placed beyond all question within bounds accep- ; table to every nation, the suggestion that all weapons of conflict, whether for use on I sea or on land, can 'be done away with is obviously pour rire. Need I say that this remark in no wise militates against the arguments to be brought up in favour of

I the abolition of war. if such be possible? This is naturally desired by all of us, since it would >be preventing for ever that I which none like—an infinity of human sufi fering. In the circumstances of to-day. j however, where nations present an unequal civilisation, and the 'thoughts aud characteristics of each severally differ almost as mudi as d-oes frost from summer heat, the Navy and the Army, rather than l>eing the n rains of provoking warfare, are, if kept at their proper standard with a view J to maintaining the balance of world-power, jthe great preventives of conflict. : arts of war through history teaches I To us the Navy is our national insurance. i I go farther, and I say <that a study of the of the arts of war throngh history teaches us that where a nation has allowed itseJf j to lose the knowledge of militarism and 'to devote itself Co that which you include j uuder the general term "culture." it has : promptly become a prey to strouger Pow--1 ers. which have tak-en advantage of its ' declining strength to add to their own I possessions. i Before the problem can effectually be presented, however T abonld like tills q.ues-

tion to be answered: Is tt within 'the bounds of human possibility 'to fix n certain date in a certain year upon which every ship of war- could simultaneously be destroyed and sunk and every weapon of terrestrial conflict at that identical moment cast on the scrap-heap?

Mγ. Phillips Oppenheim, as indeed to many artists and literary men, the idea of disarmament is repugnant: —

"I do not for a moment believe in the practical possibilities of disarmament or its problematic advantages. S-o long as human nature remains what it is to-day—and during the last two thousand years It has changed remarkably liftle—so long will force be the natural, wholesome, and inevitul>le solution of intcrniitionnl difficulties. It is a somewhat noteworthy eoinci-

denee —appreciated, without a doubt, by our Continental neighbours—that the chief supporters of 'this disarmament movement are the I" lilted States vf Anierlra and Great Britain, countries -pnwinlnent commercially, and yet. alas! of all the countries in the world the most slothful and lethargic as regards their preparedness for war. and the least imbued to-day with the true military spirit." Mr. Israel Zangwill laughs at the fears of his brother scribes: — "As it Is Impossible that the Army and Navy should be abolished, except very gradually, it is futile to contrast 'the new ■ situation with that of the existing order of society: but the Nary will always remain, in the sense of a commercial navy, and thus the hardihood 'that come* from the struggle with the sea would not Jje impaired. On land and in air the fight with Nature -would still lie maintained by miners and aviators. The saving in war taxes would improve the condition of all classes." Mr. Harold Bindloss writes: — "Presuming a general disarmament of the civilised Powers, the result, on the whole, would appear likely to be beneficial. Militant nations often have developed a highly cultured society, but this was only when they had destroyed or crippled their rivals; their progress implied the retrogression of their enemies. A spirit of high adventure may be a valuable effort to materialistic commercialism, .ami warfare might provide it with an outlet. Military service possibly Induces salutary discipline, encourages sel-Nsacriiice. «nd welds the sold led units Into an organic body with a high patriotic purpose. These benefits, however, might be secutetlby less costly means, and history shows rhat fighting strength is apt to degenerate "into brutality, and that a nation's defenders have become its oppressors.

A very clever writer. Mr. Edwin Pugli, who has given a good deal of thought to the matter, thus puts the situation: Roughly, the Navy and Army cost us about seventy millions a year. Wo should save that. But we should save much morn than that, since we should lie releasing from useless service more than n-quarter of a million of in mi. all young, strong, and healthy. The labour of these men is at that all wealth Is crested by labour. Therefore, by sotting these men free and putting them to profitable toll we should be adding enormously to the wealth of the countryAnd it would be true wealth; not great wealth for a fortunate few and abject i poverty for the unfortunate many, as it Is now. but wealth more evenly and* equitably distributed anions all classes. It might be thought that, as labour became more plentiful, It would become proportionally cheaper. And so It would become cheaper if we had still a Navy and an Army to support out of the national I resources. But. relieved of that burden. !we should have increased our annual reveI tiue hy at least n hundred millions, and I all this money could be devoted to domestic ■ reform. Did Age Pensions might bealn at sixty and be Increased to ten shillings a week. National Insurance might cease to be contributory. The Workmen's Compensation Act would tend to become more stringent. Thus the average margin of profits would be reduced, and. the independence of the men being strengthened by drastic legislation in their behalf, they. I and not the masters, would hold the adI vantage In any strike or lockout. The way I would be clear for the nationalisation of ■ all means of production, distribution, and I exchange, and private capital, with private ; monopoly, would disappear. All thingr. would lie held by the State In trust and ' for the use and advantage of all the people 'in common. Then, Iraving also rid ourselves of the burden of our colonies and India and Egypt, we should be no longer vexed by those Intricate international complications whose perpetual recurrence has brought into being the great usurers of the world. It would not be so easy for great financiers to juggle with the world's markets and bleed th's country white by levying a toll of interest

and profit on the values created by labour. Moreover. Jingoism being dead, "our aristocracy and plutocracy would be deprived of the last excuse for their existence as drones In the hive of industry by the circumstance that no naval or military or diplomatic careers would be open to them or their sous. Then, emigration being checked, land would be in such urgent demaud that the State would be forced by public opinion to take it over from the great landlords and throw it open to cultivation. So we should get nationali-sation of the land, and inevitably nationalisation of the railways, mines, canals, docks, etc. Mr. St. John Adcock write.-: — No doubt art and literature owe a great deal to war, as they owe a great deal to poverty, crime, sorrow, and all manner of sin and injustice. But who will say we should encourage the continuance of paiii, privation, and villainy in the interests of art and literature? You might as well advocate tie preeervattoa of dung-biUe be-

cause yen are abie-to crow flowers on them. Art and literature could get along very well without the services of the recruiting sergeant.

A famous painter, Mr. Arthur Hacker, R.A., writes what he thinkfi—

Tie total abolition of armaments Is unimaginable. If a man ceased to be a fighting creature, he would cease to toe virile, and could produce neither art, literature, nor anything else.

[All Eights Keeerved.]