"Blast Furnaces"

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 299, 22 November 1922, Page 6

"Blast Furnaces"

, ........... ~ y. | This remarkable book, by Michel I Corday, ; was recently mentioned: •;: by* I Anatole Franpe in; a 'letter,,.,to the ed>. tor of "Humanite." , It is called "the tale of a woman who discovers that it is men like her husband who send men like her son to the slaughter.". " Les Hauls Fourneaux" is published' by Flammarion, Paris;. The translation is by Paul Bix. It is a book on War—seen through the eyes of a woman—-War-:-written of/with a pen dipped in a woman's heart's blood. The reading of these extracts makes us realise how "all the world's akin," for some of us here in this country went, .through many of the experiences of which the writer speaks, when all women who helsl themselves aloof from the war seemed 'to be considered social outcasts!

It is written in diary form, and an entry dated; September, 1014, deals with the unthinkable;, unbelievable fact'that the civilised world, is- AC-, TUALLY AT WAR. "I thought I should never have the courage to write again. Everything in the war wilts and dest_*oys-my faith in a-better future, in progress, in the slow conquest of happiness. . . . Every morning I am recalled to a dreadful realsatiori" that WAR HAS COME. . .- . It is a terrible bankruptcy. But it .is wrong to give way to despair . . . the ideal can still be served . . . ja new purpose shines-in'my path ..■ . . since.this: immense catastrophe has broken over US, WE MUST UNRAVEL THE' CAUSE, IN ORDER TO PREVENT ITS REECURRENCE, 1 am not. so foolish as to expect to succcd/alone, or at once. But my small contribu-.j tion cannot be valueless. No witness' is-superfluous in the search for Truth, j * * * * ! In October, 1914, coming out of one! of the Bordeaux Hospitals, she meets j an old friend, Paron. "T feared the inevitable talk of the War*—the.guarded, conventional remarks one exchanges . . . but he confessed io mc how terribly the war affected him, 'filling" him with unspeakable horror.' r' . . Ah, how that relieved mc . freed mc from constraint. Now I shall be able to speak my thoughts. . . . In future, I shall not be alone." December, 1914. A visit from Paron. He has been reading the Yellow Book, the French diplomatic statement of the events that led up to the War. j Paron summarises the Germans' mo- j tives thus:— ; "The following: persons desired war:— (1) Those who had become convinced that it was inevitable, and desired to get it over as quickly as possible. (2) Those who saw in it the only way of preventing or retarding- the advent of Socialism, or of such democratic measure as A LEVY ON WEALTH. j (3) Those who saw in it the defence of the intellectual supremacy of the country. (4) Those who desired a revanche. (5) Those who were influenced by a hereditary hatred, carefully fostered by their whole education. . (6) Armament makers and ironmasters, great manufacturers in need of wider markets, bankers, discounting the Golden Age of the after-war indemnity to the victor —for all these, War was to be GOOD BUSINESS." Paron comments: "These are the. Germans' warlike groups. But, strictly speaking, there is little to choose. The reason for desiring a conflict, hardly vary from one country to another." The pacifist forces existing in Germany a year before the war are • summed up thus: — \ "The enlightened section of the no- I bility—the ruling classes in the j Southern States (all hostile to Prussian policy), the seven millions of! Germans in Alsace Denmark and Po- j land—the small and middling merchants and manufacturers, for whom i war meant bankruptcy—the great] mass of town workers and peasants.; What noxious minority had been able 1 to pervert and carry away the rest?" * * * * Paron sums up the general impression left on him, after reading the Yellow Book and extracts from the White, Blue, Orange and Green Boosts-of the other belligerents:— "In the period of tension, each Governmerat stood in dread of being behind its neighbour in the enormous work of general* mobilisation. Under the domination of this panic fear, they were in continual rivalry in their more or less secret preparations.' They, inspired one another with mutujs terr'Sr, 4lch was induced by the others' haste to .hasten yet. more.And j thl« lame of distracted emulation, of-, .r&fft" oVer pid'ding, .THREW THEM INEXORABLY INTO CONFLICT!" Already one lesson emerges clearly for our descendants —in the regime of ARMED PEACE, MOBILISATION IS WAR! <To ho continued,)*