“NO MORE WAR.”

Evening Star, Issue 19713, 14 November 1927, Page 6

“NO MORE WAR.”

Thu revulsion against war talk and against war which lias been an accompaniment of Armistice Day at Home marks a return to vitality and sanity, 'flic state of mind wliicb, up till a week ago, indulged its morbidness in predictions of the next war, regarded as unavoidable, was a reaction, no doubt, from tho extreme hopes of Locarno, helped by the failure of the naval disarmament conference and tho slow progress of the League of Nations’ Preparatory Committee working against almost heart-breaking obstacles in a wider field. The hopes that are pitched too high, or forget tho need for patience, are invariably followed by disappointment and dejection, which can easily bo tho worst enemies'tb their cause. Nevertheless, it was an unhealthy mood winch threatened to make 1927 stand out as tho year of reaction from idealism. AVilhiu a few days of each other we had a British politician and cx-Service man conjuring up the prospect of a war between Britain and America, with Japan on the British side, and an American naval commander’s forecast of a war between the English-speaking nations on the one hand and Japan on the other. Publication of such speculations, which do nothing but make suspicion and illfeeling between nations, might well bo prohibited in tho general interest. Marshal Eoch regards another war as inevitable. It is bis business, as a soldier, to be prepared for it, but it is the business, of tho Governments and tho nations to see that it docs not happen, and that will never be done bytalking of, or by believing in its inevitability. No one differs ranch to-day from the conclusion that another war, on the scale of the last, would mean tho extinction of civilisation. No one doubts that w-ar, as it has been developed, is the supremo folly which must be, in tho words of FieldMarshal Robertson “almost, if not quite, as disastrous to tho victor as to the vanquished.” That has been amply proved by the result of the last conflict. The state of mind which regards war in that light, and yet can only dwell upon it as a calamity certain to be repeated at no distant time, all efforts to avert it being hopeless, is a feeble and cowardly mood. It is like the weakness of the bird, fascinated till it drops into the jaws of the rattlesnake. It is the most paralysing of all moods, because if we were really assured that another war was unalterably decreed for us, say, in 10 years from now, there would not bo much worth doing in the meantime. To build up industries which in a few months might be ruined would be cheerless work. Tho youth destined to be cannon fodder would have the smallest incentive for learning a trade.

Happily there is a revulsion now from that pessimistic mind-state. The pendulum has swung back some way. Field-Marshal Robertson’s reminder last week that war and war talk today are “sheer madness,” and his appeal to every man and woman energetically to support more sensible ways of composing international differences were not the smallest service which ho has rendered. Tho appeal and warning have been well seconded in the last few days. The hands of the peace makers promise to be strengthened by a new determination on the nation’s part not to acquiesce in tho inevitability of war. Its possibility must bo fought against with tho same devotion with which wars themselves are fought. There is support for the new, manlier sentiment from the United States. Mr Newton D. Baker, exSecretary of War. would have his country assume the furthest-going obligations that are involved in membership of the League of Nations. He speaks for a minority at this stage, but it is well that the minority should bo helped to grow. What is required now is that the peace makers themselves shall not fly to extremes. We cannot agree with Mr H. G. Wells that the British Government has been “heading straight for - war.” Presumably what he had in mind was the Government's differences .with Russia; but it

is hard to sco how those could luivo been avoided. It is a fair claim that, if America likes to build more ships, Great Britain’s programme should be limited to that which she has outlined as required for her own necessities, and that she should not endeavor to compete with her. The American programme will be sooner curtailed when there is no sign of its loading to rivalry. There is a great deal to be said for Lord Wester Wemyss’s belief that “ ultimately there would not be peace through disarmament, but disarmament through peace.” In that case the first duty of ail people, while not opposing in their own country those defence precautions .which must still bo necessary as the world stands to-day, must bo to cultivate peaceful minds. It was expressed most aptly by-tho Prince of Wales when he said in his speech on Armistice Day: “If we were able to save ourselves and those succeeding us from renewed war-time sufferings in an even more frightful form, our every action and every-day conversation, and even our thoughts, must sock to ensure peace.”