EUROPE WENT WAR MAD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3136, 25 September 1922, Page 8

EUROPE WENT WAR MAD.

"During the war ailT the nations went m;id : together, now let us all repent together," was the appeal made by Dean Inge, of St. Paul's 1 , known a® the "Gloomy Dean," to the delegates to the Twenty-second International Peace Conference' who attended services at St. Paul's. He declared that Europe had a deep cause for repentance. The Dean's text was: "Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one an- ' other?" He said that as Europeans, J as Christians and as civilised men they p were all called upon for penitence. He (I noted from letters to prove that during the fighting men at the front felt that something was wrong with the minds of men and added that now everybody realised it. "The war, while it lasted." he continued, "seemed to us to have beeu caused by the deliberate wickedness of an abstract demon called Germany. The Germans were none the less honestly persuaded that similar abstractions called Russia. Prance, and England were criminals. Now it seems that most people were all stark mad together. The gate to' repentance has not yet been shut. We all sinned together and suffered together, so now we might all repent together. Justice, common-sense, and good-will are the qualities which are needed, not sentimentality." In referring to indemnities the Dean said: "I have 7 it on good authority that Bismarck declared that if he were to wage another successful war one of the terms of peace would be that Germany should pay a large indemnity to the losers." He added that perhaps the business community would not again make the mistake of thinking that war could ever be a good business. "But." he continued, "the liability of attacks of war fever is so great and the irrationality of human beings so intractable that we cannot rely only on appeals to common sense. A moral appeal must be first. Wc say the Germans have shown no signs of repentance. Do we make it easy for them to repent? Human hearts, like water, freeze at a certain temperature and melt under the influence of warmth. "The Christian method of overcoming evil with good does not always succeed, but the opposite method of driving out the devils by Beelzebub invariable fails. I have no wish to talk politics, but merely to point out the obvious fact that if one of a pair of gamblers who has won exacts the full payment of a heavy stake and then says. 'Now we'll play for love the rest of the evening,' the proposal is not likely to find favor with the loser."