Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1916. PACIFIST HUMBUG.

Nelson Evening Mail, 29 July 1916, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1916. PACIFIST HUMBUG.

THERE are mauy types of humbugs in the worM, but the pacifist humbug is the most dangerous in these times. These people were maiii,ly responsible for the Empire's unpreparednoss as a military power, and are now raising their heads will) the senseless clamour for an early peace. Not content with nearly wrecking the. Empire iv. the early stages of the war. they now want to give away much of what thousand* of men 'have already died for. Thtse pacifists, usually posing a-s beings of a higher moral and intellectual order, labour under the delusion that they possess the rarest form of courage —the courage that dares to incur the contempt of nil outside their little circle, whereas this is in most cases a form of conceit. These are the people who would have the Allies- treat with Germacy and her partners on a. standing of equality. Peace is a biessing to them that out w signs all other considerations. If these people delude themselves only, not much harm is done, but there are times when plausible argument may delude many unless people are properly on their guard. Fortunately the destinies of civilisation are iu the keeping of men who realize the essentia! facts in this great crisis of the world's history. And the eat ion as a whole places lar too higlh a value on peace to accept it on terms which the Hermans could be brought to entertain by anything but dafii/te and final defeat. As has been finely said, the supreme proof of the people's devotion to civilization (as they •understand it) is their readiness to endure every sacrifice rather than fail in their duty to posterity, to say nothing of their duty 'to the dead. And further : to let their minds at imis stage dwell on thoughts of peace they would consider au act of recreancy to this great trust. The pacifists are .admirably summed up by the Argus, which we hav. quoted above, in lines such as these: Theirs is the equanimity which remains undisturbed bv the wrongs of (Belgium, the openmmdedness which regards Germany as a nation which it would be unchristian to humiliate, the courage which wouid have one's own country accept defeat—for that, is what a peace now obtainable would mean—these ar3 not attributes of a high moral and intellectual nature. They°show, rather, moral and luiedectuaf ilabbiness. The people now beginning to agitate in England for peace are the" people who would have had the British Empire break fa,ith with France. Russia and Belgium, and stay out of the war altogether. Every speech they wake, every article they write, every resolution they pass, plays straight into the hands of the enemy. Their utterances are eagerly circulated in Germany as evidences of national weakening on the war. If such peace talk as has been coming from the -enemy .swelled! thrranks -of the pacifists in the Allied conctries Germany would have achieved another triumph of ingenuity.