Preparing For The Future

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30737, 29 April 1965, Page 18

Preparing For The Future

Sir, —The pacifist view that a person who turns to pacifism after having fought against aggression is on better grounds than his colleagues, indicates the fallacy of pacifism. If his service in the army had merit, then his position as a convert to pacifism must be questionable. Pacifism no doubt assures that negotiation with an aggressor is possible, but a helpless victim is not in a position to parley with an armed assailant. He must submit, unconditionally.— Yours, etc., T.M.S. April 28, 1965.

Sir, —This correspondence seems to be degenerating into reminiscences of the past rather than making forecasts for the future. “Peace” advocated studying the Book of Job. The Old Testament is hardly applicable to the solution of modern problems or

it would not have told us, “Be fruitful and multiply.” We have done our little best in this respect, but far less efficiently than Moslems, Buddhists, Shintoists, and Atheists, so that the world is jam full of people who have no respect for our particular brand of ethics. If these decide to start an atomic war they will do so, but in the mutual destruction which follows quite large slices of the world need not be involved. Tierra del Fuego, Lapland, and those uncomfortable islands lying in the Arctic and Antarctic circles would have an excellent chance of survival, so after another of its periodical population shake-outs, perhaps the world would go on after all.—Yours, etc., CARACTACUS. April 28, 1965.