CAUSES OF WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 139, 14 June 1935, Page 6

CAUSES OF WAR.

Mr. J. Guiniven makes a number of misstatements which should not be allowed to go unchallenged. He eays that war means the survival of the fittest. War means just the opposite—the elimination off the fit. Surely Mr. Guiniven knows that only fit men are accepted for service overseas and that the unfit are retained to propagate their species. Hence the proportion of misfits and the shortage of first-class brains in the world to-day. Mr. Guiniven says that victory means efficiency. Well, who were victorious in the last war? The Allies, with a crushing burden of debt and thirty millions of unemployed and destitute ? Where is the efficiency in that state of affairs? Surely Mr. Guiniven must realise that there is no such thing as victory in modern warfare. All must lose—in men and money and morale. Mr. Guiniven's idea that competition is a condition of progress and advance is equally fallacious. The logical result of the insane competitive system under which we live is wage-cutting, currency depreciation, a race in armaments, war and hosts of other ills brought about by economic rivalry and each nation trying to steal a march on its competitors. It is not competition, but international co-operation, that is needed before any real progress -will be achieved. Finally, Mr. Guiniven suggests that all pacifists should be deported. It is all very well for those' who arq themselves over military age or who slid not taste the 'horrors. of; the last war to talk glibly about pacifists.. Personally, as an ex : soldier, I would prefer to see the pacifists retained in all countries, and the war-tnongers deported to some desert island, where they could have a donnybrook on their own. After they had killed each other . off the rest of the world would be able to live in harmony. E, C. SIMMONS. .