WAR AND TRAINING FOR WAR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1704, 22 March 1913, Page 4

WAR AND TRAINING FOR WAR.

Tiie other day, taking as our text an address by Pkofessor Spencer Wilkinson, we discussed tho unnaturalness of what calls itself - the "anti-militarist" movement. It is part of the "anti-militarists'" case that war is a capitalistic trick, evil in itself, productive of no good, and an accident the provision against which (in tho shape of military braining) tun he made uanoconaary by the moro posing of a few local

Acts relating to land and wages. Our readers will doubtless share the astonishment which wo felt when, in tho Christchurch papers of a recent date, we read a brief report of an address delivered to the Scottish Society by Mn. Laurenson, M.P., on tho occasion of tho Bannockburn anniversary. Mn. LauhensoN's speech was a very good littlo defence of tho value of war, to human progress. He said that the history of tho last century had proved that civilisation could, and sometimes did, go "furrud on a powder wagon." There is nothing very new in Mn. Laurenson's address, but he marshalled his instances with some force and exactness, so that wc can usefully quote practically the whole of his address as reported: \

It was admitted, ho said, that civilisation sometimes dicl go "fttrrud, oven on a powder wagjn." The history of the last century has proved that true. Trafalgar had killed piracy on the eeas, and was the beginning of the end of tho Napoleonio despotism, and enabled Britain to carry oiit her great humanitarian work of colonising. Waterloo brought peace to exhausted Europe;. Gettysburg gave liberty to the slaves of Americaj Sedan and (Mvelotte iihited Germany) Sttdowa gave life and liberty to Italy; while Luleh Burgas promised to end the day of tho Turkish domination in the Balkans. Bannockburn; meant much to Scotland and much to the far-flung British Empire. If the English under Edward II had been victorious the national life of Scotland would have been obliterated, her national aspirations trampled under foot, and her pride of race destroyed. The battle was not lost. It was won by 40,000 brave men, and the nation beoame one. Bannockburn gave to Scotland and her sons strength of. character and a feeling of self-reliance that had made the Scots valuable factors in the building of the, great Empire. It was a battle won by the plebeians. Tho lessons to be learned, from Bannockburn were that no country had ever yet beoome a nation -without winning its right to that nationhood in the bloody arena of war: that from the sesd-tima of war, with all its stress and horror, there springs a crop of poßts, artists, tlnd geniuses in every walk of. life, and that they ivore produced only during times of national stress and exaltation.

Every word of that Is dreadfully wicked in the eyes of the "antimilitarists," and no doubt many of Mr. Laurenson's "anti-militarist" friends will be shocked and angry. For they will see that the doctrine of the usefulness of war—or tho doctrine that war can bo of a high spiritual and material value—leads to the corollary that a nation alive to its duty and its destiny will take steps to be prepared,to do its duty. Six or seven centuries ago military training may not have been necessary. Men in those days could' fight with staves or axes or knives, and did so fight, and needed no more special training than their wholesome daily work. A rabblo with Btout hearts, strong arms, and an abundance of pikes and axes was a good enough army almost as soon as it was collected together. But the whole world has beeii transformed since then. Men do not fight nowadays hand to hand with axes and pikes: they fight with special weapons which careful training alono can make useful, and they fight in greater numbers, at longer range, and in more complicated and trying conditions. ' Nobody who.admits the virtues of war, vyhile seeing 'tho constant risk of it, can deny tho imperative need of proper national training for it. ' Mr. Laurenson has not in the past been startlingly faithful to tho _prinpiplo of our defence Act; which is a prin 7 ciple following naturally from the doctrine of his Bannockburn lecture. Ho has seemed to,ally Himself with those 1 who hate tho Act just as they have denounced the very truths sot out in his speech. His politics are not ours —wo think he represents a nationally injurious school of thought —but wo always applaud good EenEO wherever we see it. His address, as reported, was a very good one, and we should bo glad to think that it marks the beginning of a candid and loyal friendship for our Defence Act.