NO MORE WAR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 October 1924, Page 7

NO MORE WAR.

ADDRESS BY MR. W. A. SHEIAT.

We have been requested to publish the following address delivered by Mr. demonstration gathering held recently in Hawera: - J

The purpose of this meeting to-night is to ■ enable those in' sympathy with the no-more-war movement to loin in the demonstration against war, which is being held on an international scale to-day, and towards which this meeting is only one—probably one of the smallest contributions. Tins uo-more-wai movement is now in its fifth year aiid each year has seen these demonstrations being more widely held and enlisting the support of an everwider range of interests. New Zealand, being far removed from the centres of world -politics and comparatively indifferent to world problems, has hitherto been backward in the matter of these demonstrations, but to-day they have been organised for th®. me bi many new centres, which fact we can accept as evidence that the rising tide of opinion in favour of peace is taking New Zealand m its flow, and that our people are being profoundly influenced by develop--011 the °fber side of the world, the motion you are asked to endorse this evening includes severaL. distinct proposals. 011 only one do I propose to speak at any length, and that is the call to dur Governments to pursue a policy of international co-operation. Such a policy, though many fail to realise it, is essential to- the well-being or our country, and is therefore dictated for us by consideration of plain self-interest, if on no higher grounds. Though our whole philosophy of nationalism and of patriotism still declines to recognise it, the day of national isolation, of national exclusiveness and self-sufficiency, is dead and gone. Particularly the last generation has seen an immense growth in the inter-dependence of nations.

Nations once self-supporting have become dependent upon the people of other nations, both for the things they have to sell and for those they have to buy. The inhabitants of every country in the world are more dependent than ever before upon the inhabitants of other countries for goods and services essential to their continued existence. This gives every nation, and ultimately every individual in every nation, a powerful interest in the peace, well-being and progress of other nations.

But in spite* of this great growth in the inter-dependence off nations we find many people who still view the prospect of war with the same indifferenice with which it was regarded a century ago —people who still look upon nations as essentially groups of individuals with opposing interests, ignoring completely the great common interests which overshadow rlie petty conflicts which are all their distorted vision can see. This tendency to magnify the conflicting interests of nations and to ignore the common interests leads to the attitude of indifference to war, perhaps even to the idea that out of international conflictgood may ensue. As Gladstone said at the time of the Crimean War:

“There is pomp and circumstance, there is glory and excitement about war, which, notwithstanding the miseries it entails, invests it with charm" in the eyes of the community and tends to blind men to these evils to a fearful and dangerous degree.” But war, in a world of interdependence States, can only have disastrous results for all engaged in it. Its first result must be the blocking of channels of trade and intercourse vital to the existence of the peoples, the severing of the arteries through which flows the life-blood of the nations. It is for this reason that in the world of to-day the only sound policy for any nation and for all nations is a policy of international cooperation. War is no longer an affair of professional fighters, but of nations mobilised to the last unit of their populations. In modern war there are no non-combatants. Women, even children, are flung into the arena -where they are exposed to the same risks of mutilation and death as their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers. Militarism employs the highest achievements of science and invention for the purposes of random murder. Death rains from the skies upon towns and villages which have no military significance from aerial navies commissioned to break the “morale’' of the people by indiscriminate bombthrowing. Their food supplies are menaced by blockades and submarine attacks, the national economy is disorganised and international communications are broken. Censorships are established, liberty of thought and speech are suppressed, conscription is levied, taxation is increased, debts are piled up. When Avars \\-ere Avaged by professional fighters the effects could to some extent be localised, but modern Avar, invokes Avhole nations, sometimes all the nations, in its scope. If the Avorld is alloAved to revert to the old methods, as it inevitably Avill if men fail now in their efforts to organise the world forces of peace and to erect barriers against the Avelter of murderous forces that srveep the nations into Avar, the consequences are too terrible to contemplate. Western eh’ilisation, already dangerously Aveakened and impoverished, may be completely destroyed. When Ave protest against Avar, then avc protest against something more than its inhumanity and its Avastefulness, great as these are. We protest, first and foremost against its futility as a means of settling international differences. War leaA’es nations less fitted for that harmonious co-operation Avhich is A’ital to the life of each and of all. War leaves us a less workable 1 society. War increases the Forces of

chaos and disintegration. That i.s the ultimate indictment of the last Mar as

of all wars. The attitude towards life from which it arises, the ideas and motive forces out of which it grows and M'hich it fosters makes men less able to live together, makes their society less workable, and must end by making free society impossible. War not only arises out of the failure of human wisdom, from the defects of that intelligence by M'hich alone we can successfully fight the forces of nature. : It perpetuates that failure and worsens it. War aln'ays scatters the seeds of future wars and nourishes them with the blood of the slain. Let us recall the lofty idealism by which alone our peoples were sustained flu ring the war period. The -war urns “a. M-ar to end M'ar,” to “make the world safe for democracy.” to build “a land fit for heroes.” It was not a war for national aggrandisement. We M-anted “no annexations, no indemnities.” We said we had “no quarrel until the German people.” They, we said, were ns much the victims as ourselves of the ambitions of their 'war lords. What lias become of-these fine ideals? Have they been realised, and I for that reason ceased to be spoken of, or have they been carefully put au r ay

in the innermost recesses of our minds and of our national ideals only to be thought of again when another great tragedy overtakes mankind when perchance they will again be brought forth and once more used to inflame national enthusiasm and drive the youth of’ the nations off to the shambles? For years after the Armistice the whole attitude of the victors was one of elaborate travesty of this war idealism. . Slowly the peoples of Europe have become disillusioned and have turned from the Bottomleys and the Churthe high priests of militarism, to the MacDonalds and the Morels, the real friends of peace. /Admissions like those of Mr. Lloyd George have hastened the disillusionment when he said (December 23, 1920) : “The more one reads memoirs and books written in the various countries of what happened before August 1, 1914, the more one realises that no one at the head of affairs quite meant war at .that stage. It was something into which they glided, or rather staggered and stumbled, perhaps through folly, and a discussion, T have no doubt, would have averted it.” Hear, too, the testimony of Mr. Austen Chamberlain, who, speaking in the House of Commons on February 8, 1922, said: “If. our obligations had been known and definite, it is possible, and I think it is probable, that war would have been avoided in 1914.” Mr. L. P. Jacks (editor of the Hibbert Journal) shortly after the Peace Treaty was signed, in a remarkable article entitled “Why We are Disappointed,” wrote of the settlement in these words: “The call for a generous spirit was clear and urgent above all else that the occasion demanded, but it was not heeded. . . . The treaty (Versailles) is the product of a thoroughly frightened world. In the elaboration of its safeguards, its precautions, its guarantees, and most of all, its penalties, we read a profound distrust of mankind. . . .-.The British are by no means averse to punish an enemy, but they have been generally satisfied with the punishment that consists in beating him to his knees on the field of battle. To pursue punishment to the extreme limits victory renders possible, to cripple the fallen foe so that he cannot rise, to deprive him of his self-respect, to penalise his unborn generations—all this is not only offensive to our dignity as a warrior nation, but it has come to be regarded by enlightened statesmen as opposed to the - plainest dictates of commonsense, as bad business of the most, deplorable kind. . . . The British Empire has everything, to lose and nothing to gain by the destruction of any part of the human heritage.” Principal Jacks goes on to ask how different might have been the settlement had our approach to the vanquished been couched in the following terms: “You people have excellent brains and have proved yourselves capable thinkers. Our terms as conquerors are that these thinking powers of yours which you have hitherto abused, shall be passed on intact to the service of the society of nations we are now forming. We need your intellectual resources for the great tasks we have now in hand. # Your faculty of organisation, your mental ■ thoroughness and habits of discipline, and all else upon which you base your claim to be a cultured nation, are now to enter a new service, where they will be cured of their attendant vice and provided with a higher field of exercise, and become a much needed contribution in helping the world to bring order out' of the chaos which in the evil past you did so much to create.” The call for that generous spirit is just as urgent to-day. The war has left problems to be grappled with which it is generally admitted can only be solved by international cooperation, including the fullest cooperation between victors and vanquished. The need for co-operation has been well stated recently by that distinguished advocate of peace, BrigadierGeneral Lord Thomson, Air Minister in the MacDonald Cabinet, in these words: “Co-operation is essential not only between Governments, but between peoples in every sphere and class. Here is a case where interests and ideals go together as they always must; it is pure common sense. In the war-wasted lands and undeveloped parts of Europe and. of the world there is scope for all the energy and business enterprise of the whole world. All the nations might bring to. the common store their special quota of culture and enlightenment and not cause a glut. Knowledge and understanding will always be rare and precious. They are like signposts on a road still rough and incomplete, a long steep road for whose construction much patience and practical idealism will be required. But there are millions of men and women eager to do the work, for this road leads upwards . to the shirring tablelands of international peace.” The problems of peace demand for their solution all the noble qualities demanded by war and require them in a> higher degree. The notion that nations cannot long retain the manly virtues of courage and endurance unless their populations are from time to time disciplined in the hard school of war is obviously false. In an age of self-indulgence and luxury those who wish well their kind cannot too often repeat that the exclusive pursuit of wealth and material comfort is dangerous and debasing. But it does not follow from this most wholesome truth that perpetual peace is a dream and not even a beautiful dream. We have in our country a land wher-e the physical, perfection of manhood is often attained by outdoor sports and healthy exercises. Across the Pacific we find another people among whom intense patriotism and a most jealous regard for the honour of the flag are kept alive without the existence of a standing army of sufficient size to be an appreciable factor in the life of the nation. All around us are examples, of the most heroic self-sacri-fice. It is kindled not only by religions fqryour or the enthusiasm for humanity, but 'by devotion to truth and beauty, or even by zeal for discovery and love of enterprise. And among those by whom it is felt- in the highest degree are many who have never seen a battlefield or even learnt , the rudiments of military drill. While there are new countries to be explored, new tracts to be reclaimed from the wilderness and tamed for the service of men, there will never be lacking an ample field for the utmost energy of the iestless and the adventurous. While there are seas to be crossed and mountains to be climbed ski LI and daring will be in constant demand. The fireman in the burning building is as brave as the soldier m the breach. The miner in his underground galieTies has as much need of coolness and courage as the engineer in the trenches. Domestic life gives a far better training in self-control and self-denial than the camp or the battlefield. Obedience afid discipline are qualities necessary for tlie pursuit of countless manufacturing industries. Loyalty to comrades may be developed by engaging with others in the tasks of political or social organisation. The destruction and waste caused !y war,

the passions it stirs up, and ~he suffering and vice that follow in its train, are a terrible price to pay for l.oble qualities that* may be better gained in other ways. Peace does not necessarily mean sloth and luxury. Men can be manly without periodical resort to the. occupation of mutual slaughter. It is not necessary to graduate in the school of arms in order to learn the hard lessons of duty and honour and selfsacrifice.

In one of his war-time publications, that great peace writer, G. Lowes Biekinson, writes of “The True Meaning, of. . Peace” in a passage which I would like to quote at some length. “There can be no peace,” he says, “not even & genuine desire for peace, until nun realise that the greatness of a people is to be measured, not m terms of territory, population or power. but by the quality of life of the individual citizen. A city like Athens or Florence is worth all the Empires that have ever been. A State, of a lew hundred thousands, among whom should be found a a Michael Angelo,, a Goethe, outweighs beyond all calculations one whose gross insignificant millions should be diagooned by the drill sergeant or sophisticated by the university professor. The nobility of a people lies not in ris capacity for war, but in its capacity for peace. It is indeed only because the nations are incapable of the one that they plunge so readily into the other. If they had the power of living they would neither endure to kill; nor de.slie to die. The task of peace is 10 coate life as the task of war is to destroy it; to organise labour so that 1; shall not incapacitate men tor leisure; to establish justice as a basis for jiersonality; to unfold in men the capacity for noble joy and profound sorrow; to liberate them for the passion of love, the perception of beauty, the contemplation of truth. Of all these things war is the enemy. For peace is not merely a negative ideal, it is the condition of all positive ones, in war man seeks escape from life in blind intoxication. In peace he discovers and fulfils life by impassioned reason. It is because our peace is so bad that we fall into war. But every war makes our peace worse. If men had given to the creation of life a. tithe of the devotion they have offered again and again to its destruc- . tion they would have made a world so glorious a place that they Mould not : need to take refuge from it in the ' shambles. It is our false ideals thai, ' make for Avar. And it is the feebleness of our ideals and the pettiness of our | passions that permit such ideals to master us.”

“Once more,” continues Dickinson,

“we are witnessing now whither- that eourse leads us. Once more we are witnessing the vast futility of war. Once more we shall recover, reeling, from its blind intoxication in ivhich. we have taken refuge to look with dismay on our bloody hands and the bloody work they have achieved. Once more we shall have a chance of learning the lesson Shall we learn it?, I cannot tell. But I hope. I hope because of the young. To you, young men, it has been given by a tragic fate to see with your eyes and hear with your ears what M T ar really is. If you return from this ordeal remember what it has been. Do not listen to, the shouts of victory, do not snuff the incense of applause, but keep your inner vision fixed on facts you have faced. Think other thoughts, love other loves, youth of England and of the u’orld. Guide now yourselves and ns. Believe in the fu-tm-e, for none but you can. Believe in

the impossible, for it awaits the help of your hands to become the inevitable. Of all the best hopes of civilisation and of mankind be you the friends.

Take up the thought and give it shape in act. You can,' and ■ you alone.. It is for you who have suffered. It is for you who have gained vision.” \ There are doubtless many who: will remain coid and unmoved, by’ these words, these hopes, the enthusiasm which inspired this appeal. The reactionary patriot will smile with an air of scorn. Men whose minds are perverted or sealed with: militaristic philosophy will shrug their shoulders, ; them go their ways. For we know that among those who stand aloof from the peace .movement because of false opinions concerning us, among men .whose hearts are sound', , but who are mere, tools and counters in the hands of an immoral system for ever incapable of inspiring a real faith in the future, there will perhaps be found some ; iew, who when they hear this appeal, which we endorse from our conscience and our heart, will be moved to reflect upon the part they are made to play, and upon, the true meaning of the military , system under whose-domination the world still lives; to feel that faith, true faith, is elsewhere, that where the spirit of peace is there is liberty; and that we, the friends of liberty and peace, are the truest friends of our country and -of humanity. It is in this faith that workers for peace must apply themselves to the task of constructive internationalism. They must rewrite the history of the past and the politics of the present, in the light of the international ideal. They must destroy the romantic illusions and insist upon the hard facts. They' must return again and again from every angle of-approach to the, fundamental problem of war and peace. They must treat war as a-pro-blem, not an axiom, a catastrophe, not a glory, a disease to diagnose, not an achievement to idealise. To those who would inflame international; hatred and animosity, they must reply in those passionate words of Shelley: 1 Oh, cease! Must- hate and death return? Cease! Must men kill and die? r

Cease! Drain.not to its, dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary, of the past. Oh,, might it die or west at last.