JUSTIFICATION OF WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 188, 9 August 1919, Page 13

JUSTIFICATION OF WAR.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS' 1 INCONSISTIiNCIES. | MR. ISITTS STRAIGHT TALK. 1 Mr. L. 'M. leitt, M.P., unveiling an | Honour Roll in the Durham Street Methodkt Church in Chrlstchurch, made a -well-reasoned speech on the Christian duty to fight. 'T have not," he added, "the slightest doubt of the righteousness and seemliness of this action. There are men m this country w-ho have refused to fight—who are making persistent attacks upon the irreligion of members of the Christian Church who, like myselt, believe that, however hateful and hideous war may be, circumstances may occur that render it not only necessary and justifiable, but render it the imperative duty of every thinking and able-bodied man to bear a part in the defence of his country. Some of these pacifists say, when we unveil a Roll cf Honour, that ■we are dishonouring God—that we are neglecting the teachings of the Christ whom we serve, and are glorifying war. I question whether the Germans could bring a more unfair charge against their enemies than this imputation upon our motives —'glorifying warl 1 can hardly imagine a man in this blood-soaked earth, after five j'ears of our awful experience, who would glorify war. j "When you pay a. tribute to a physi-' cian who has given his life in the cause of science by experimentally inoculating iimself with a germ, do you call that glorifying disease? When we honour our. men who have given their lives to save us' from German conquest, do you call that glorifying war? I hate war as I hate; drink, because of the misery it causes, j War is a supreme crime, a supreme folly,' the lunacy of nations. It is as foolish j and silly as it is cruel and wicked. It' exasperates mc that after so many years I of civilisation we still have recourse to j war to settle our difficulties. Whether! the League of Nations is successful or not, I welcome it as a glorious attempt, and a step in the right direction. But 1 i say solemnly that it is my intense convie- j tian that, under certain conditions, it would be far worse for a nation to submit than to fight." For half a century, Mr. rsltt continued, Germany had been obsessed with the lust of world conquest, and had trained for it as a prize fighter trains for the ring. All that a nation could do Britain did do to avoid the struggle. Before God he would say he believed that at last, when Britain drew the sword, there never had been in history a time when a nation drew the sword with so much reluctance, and with higher and more disinterested motive. Pacifists were an extraordinary combination of religionists and irreliglgionkts, of loyal and disloyal, of mere shirkers and honest doubters -who proved their courage by the way in which they met their hardships. They had a jumble of contradictory and varying arguments. He only wished to deal with one. "They say that war is hateful and wicked: that bloodshed is opposed to the spirit of Christ," said Mr. Isitt. "But they contlude that if your enemies seek to enslave or destroy you, and not only you, but to enslave and destroy or outrage other men, women or children, even if they aim at world conquest, if you have been a follower of Christ you must disband your armies and navies, you must meet hate with love, and leave the issue with God. That is a tremendous proposition. Personally, I have so little doubt as to the result that I should need a distinct, un-j mistakable message from the living God before I should be prepared to make the experiment. We have had no such message. We believe that faith in God should go hand in hand with common sense." Christians,.he continued, must never give way to the spirit of revenge, but nowhere did he find an utterance by Christ that would justify him in standing quietly by while a ruffian outraged a child. "I would risk," he said, "the inheritance- of Heaven and the sufferings offeell before I would do it. I do not! beSwe that for the honour of my soul 1 j should be prepared to sacrifice the chastity of my daughter to the brutality of ihe Huns." Such interpretations of*the! Divine will were, he said, made by menj who had no special claim to intellectual distinction or enlightenment. Such ani interpretation would smother every chivalrous instinct he had in his heart, and would reduce his manhood to such a .miserable thing that he would feel leprous to the end of his days. The men '■ who made these interpretations werej often inconsistent. Throughout their! lives they failed to put the same inter-1 pretation upon the Divine utterances.! Take, for example, Christ's utterance, "Go give all that thou hast to the poor."; It did not mean that they were to go in' absolute poverty. "If I met a conscien-! tious objector walking down to his office and said, 'Come with mc to Kaiapoi—li want your help in delivering an address! there,' would he say, 'I will come to j Rangiora with you?'" If I felt in his poe-j ket and took away his watch, would he J say 'Stop, you have left the chain'? I 3. 1 it not a fact that aiany of the most ! prominent agitators in Christchurch are' those most prominent and eager to place' laws upon the Statute Book to force tlie capitalists, upon threat of punishment, to cease oppression in the commercial world? Well and good; but how does that square with no-resistance? If they say 'God will honour our submission,' how do they propose to stop the sweating of the employees ? If it is wrong to resist the force of another nation, surely it is wrong to resist force in our own country. They have'acquiesced in the use of force in our civil community. If to-morrow we abandoned all legal restraint, life end property would he no longer safe, aEarchy would prevail, the ■worst section of society would rise to conti-01, and life would become one long l»ell of wretchedness and suffering. We ffo not glorify war. We hate it. We pray God that the time will come when, by the League of Nations, or some other j Kethod, we may stop war, but so long as. war exists we have the Christian right to honour the men who tore themselves away from the happiness of home, from Peaceful ambitions, pleasures and pro- i arises of life, to face the utmost horror j of war that we might be saved from its ] svil effects." j