Peace Quest Should be a Crusade

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 17

Peace Quest Should be a Crusade

Striking Argument in Recent War Novel

“One great character in Mr. Harold Begbie’s new novel, ‘Black Rent,’ faces realities,” notes “Public Opinion,” which reprints an arresting extract. “The War gives Mr. Begbie

his motive—the vision he has been working up to all through the book.”

RASHTON is talking to a friend: “‘What do 1 you mean by that phrase, the saving plunge?’ ‘ “ ‘Ah!’ The doctor sat forward in his chair, alert, energetic, fiery. ‘My friend, have you not observed that most men spend their lives on the edge of their activities, on the shores of their employments? The statesman, the man of science, the author, the painter, the physician, the priest—look at them, dwelling on the outside of their enthusiasms, cold-blooded, cool, calm, self-possessed—dabblers, tinkerers. “‘With what result, with what deplorable result?—that the world is flooded with the works of mediocrity, and there is no clear voice announcing the truth of existence. Who is the geat man? Who is the genius? He who has taken the plunge, who has flung himself clean away from selfconsciousness, from hesitation, from doubt, from half-belief, and plunged __ headlong into the deep waters of affirmation. “I believe!” Ah, the most saving words in the world! Yet, but they must come from the lips raised above the waters of enthusiasm into which the soul has hurled itself to escape from death and in order to find life?” Later in the book a friend in Vienna makes a similar plea. As Mr. Begbie writes: — “He then said that Rashton was the very man the League wanted, not as a worker in the fields, but as a directing mind at headquarters; and he suggested, pressing it on Rashton with quiet conviction, that as soon as ever he was well enough to travel, Rashton should go to Geneva and offer his services to Dr. Luflwik Rajchmann, of Poland, who was a man of genius at the head of the Health Organisation of the League. “ ‘You want something into which you can throw? he said earnestly, “not some of your energies, but all of them, in fact your entire nature, and I am certain that nothing in the world could so monopolise and employ the whole of you as a task which embraces the entire destinies of the human race. “‘You would be working, too? he added, as if indifferently, ‘with men of all nations. • . . You would enter a new world in which everyone is thinking of science and goodwill, those two things, and those alone? ” Rashton eventually gets to Geneva, and with a touch of humour the novelist goes on: — ( “ ‘Have you come to Geneva, may I ask, for any particular purpose?’ inquired the bookseller, staring at . Rashton through thick and dusty spectacles, with a worried frown in his .colourless, eyes. “ ‘Yes, I have come to make Inquiries about the League of Nations? . ‘“Ah! So you are one of those. Well, I suppose it is all right; but this League of Nations in my opinion will end in smoke. However, that is not my business. But if you intend to stay here till the peace of the world is secured then I shall have to regard you as a tenant for life? ” Rashton, however, in the Geneva atmosphere gets into touch with

the right people. A man named Lindford, who is at the heart of things, says to him':— “ ‘What. I want to see is a handful of men fighting for this League of Nations as Paul fought for the crucified Christ. Why shouldn't you be one of them? You hated war before I did. It has cost you heart’s blood. It’s the enemy of all you love. Why not fling yourself into the work of peace?’ “Rashton replied that he had come to Geneva . . . rather on the scientific side, the side connected with health. “Lindford shook his head wearily. ‘That’s no good,’ he said. ‘There are scores of people doing that. What the world wants, if it is to be saved, is a man with faith in the power of peace, a man who’ll break f through all suspicions and fears and jealousies and hatreds which exist between nations and affirm the essential unity of mankind. .Peace wont come by negotiation. Statesmen can’t bring it to earth by appending their signatures to compacts. It’ll come, Rashton, only when humanity -cries for it from the depths of its heart, and that cry will go up to heaven only when a Paul has gone through the wor’l preaching his faith. . • • And later on Rashton’s great friend puts another aspect before him: — “‘I don’t know whether you have heard that the league is not only working for disarmament, arbitration, and peace; it’s also working for a greater companionship among nations; it’s bringing them together for the purpose of fighting disease, spreading scientific knowledge, improving the conditions of labour in backward countries, putting down the infamous traffic in women and children, and stopping the illicit trade in opium. “ ‘lt’s really a magnificent effort to realise the essential unity of mankind. And it’s in the hands of men who aren’t in the least heady with sentimentalism, and who don’t imagine they are going to change the face of existence in two winks. They’re mostly long-headed and far-sighted men who see that this is going to be a job for a lifetime, and who will be satisfied, Whatever the pace of things, so long as the general cause is advancing. . . ? “He heard every word that Philip said, dimly agreed with all his opinions, and decided, without any sense of excitement in his heart, and without any feeling of crisis in his mind, that he would give up the rest of his life to working for the League of Nations. Yes, that was settled. Here was a great work, and into it he -would throw all that remained to him of intellectual force and moral enthusiasm. “He might not believe that the world could be made better, but- at least he could strive to prevent this imperfect world from being wiped out by poison gas. He might not believe that human nature could even be radically changed, but at least he could labour to prevent it from reverting to the abominations of barbarism and the disgraces of savagery. Yes, he would enlist in this new army which was fighting for a great and noble hope and for the destruction of the beast.”