"NEVER AGAIN."

North Otago Times, Volume C, Issue 13180, 8 October 1914, Page 7

"NEVER AGAIN."

WHAT THE . WORLD SAYS OF THE TRAGEDY. POSSIBILITIES OF ITS REPETITION • ■ TO END. . : v , Europe must see to it, that .thenar, is not endori till the power, of , the two German EmpiVes is .'smashed, and the possibility of them imposing their base wills'iipon the world again is ' broken for ever, . .. They have proved'that it is not safe for them to be at large. They are : in conflict with all 1 that the ;wo.rhi ; holds dear. "There is universal testimony . to this'feeling. Never Again. "Our sons and young kinsmen quit their horiies to meet death, wounds, nud disease, Why!'' asks Mr Arnold • White in the " Mail." "Not-because they or we liate the Germans or Germany.

'' May. it lie suggested that those .two words, I Never again!' should ,be embroidered on the kit-bag of .all ratings in .the Rciyal Navy, and painted on the knapsacks of all.soldiers! . 'The'.menace of the mailed fist used by military ■ bullies against tl>e civil populations of the whole world must now cease at all cost, and for all time. "We banker after no mau's land or gold, thirst for no glofv, prestige, or conquest. But we wish (o be freed from the terror of a would-be mhster-of-the-world breaking up our homes," killingour businesses, and. plunging all of us into a sea of eare and pain. ' 1 The war must uot eud until German warships are sunk, her fortresses razed to the ground, her army disbanded, her munitions destroyed, and , the military and civil bureaucrats responsible for opening hell gates are shot or exiled. "Delenda est Germania. I '' Not Twice.

"Not twice can the peoples) of seven States be summoned to take their chance of death and material ruin on the firit of kings and Governments, from ivliom no staloiiient of causes ban proceeded beyond a hasty or a selected resume of the last flying messages of embarrassment or despair that have passed bet ween I hem, " says the "Na-' lion." "No such order can,be reestablished save as the consequence of a formal and deliberate abandonment of democracy and a reversion to the autocratic principle. On this ground thousands of thinkers in all countries stand watchful,decided, and expectant." As If They Had Not Been Said. ''The absorbing fact,'' savs the'' Nation," "is the dominance of the Power of Darkness—of groping error and ignorance—which evoked it. In the second great home of Christendom the words of Jesns, spoken to redeem mankind from just such a desolating crime as this, arc as if they had never been said. "The world must for months do without the thoughts of its best and wisest, and satisfy its starving soul with the deeds and decrees of physical force. >Socialism, the creed of the enlightened workmen, has disappeared in a day and a night. The vision of a world-organism, augmenting and heightening the ameliorating power of individual and State eflort lo a degree hitherto undreamt-of in his)ory, has temporarily been sunk in earthquake ami eclipse, Society of Hope in Ruins.

"Science, divided like every moral i'nrce against itself, must, on ihe one hand, be spent in fortifying the destructive power of mnn against man, and, on the other, in mitigating-it's exImnest calamities, Kuroiieiini{statesmanship, has .with its own hands, torn up its timid projects for relieving the .always pitiful lot of the poor. The society of hope and ideas lies in ruins; in months or-years to come our enfeebled hands must collect its broken stones and try lo rebuild it," The Real War. "What drives nations into war is abstractions, ami what, gives the abstractions life is the belief in ihom," says G. Lowes Dickinson in the "Nation." "Such abstractions are power, prestige, honour, in the sense in which nations use the word. These are ghosts of a dying age, but ghosts that are not yet laid. What is real is labour, intelligence, imagination, and the fruits of these are common to all men. But into these realities the life of passion is only beginning lo (low; along the old channels, once they are opened, it flows with fatal force. Let war'be declared, and every individual in a nation is ready lo lay,'down his goods and his life. That is why to some noble men war appears as a noble thing. But what makes it so is the passion that is misled mto its service. Misled Passion. '•That passion is needed for the real •hings, for good instead of evil, for truth instead of lies, for love instead ot hate, To turn il into those chaunels, the fricnls of reason are always working, For the moment Iheir voice will not be heard,

"But as this war pursues its dreadfa 1 course, A3 its fatal and foreseen consequences unroll,'(is the fact of what we are doing begins to penetrate from our senses to our imagination, as the dreadful awakening succeeds to the stunning shock, it will be for Ihe friends of rea'son to drive home the,lesson; lirst and ehiefest into their own heart mid brain, then, if strength be given them, into the I'ouscioiu'c of mankind. That is 'our war—those of us who believe in renwon—onr eternal and holy, war, In this dark hour of our defeat, let us not forget it." ' "There is but. one substantial hope of averting a second return of Europe to barbarism, and thai lies in the setting up in each afflicted country of a reign of modified Socialism," says the "Nation." "This partial reorganisation may be effected by the action of. the State find Ihe municipalities i:i regulating employment and food supplies, and probably fixing their price, But the rich must make up their minds to share with the poor. \ "Some will thus act from a prudent, fenv of losing their all; others with the knowledge and the feeling, that as the •masses of the people are in' each country ignorant, or the cnuses of this war, niid innocent of all responsibility for it/, as 110 European Parliament, 110 representative body of citizens, was informed of its country 's full obligations until the time had passed for Effective judgment upon them,, a united effort must be made to diminish tho resulting senreitv of food and work."

History's Greatest. Tragedy, 11 Since last week millions of men have been drawn from the field and the factory to slay one another by order of the war lords of - Europe," says the "Economist." fit is perhaps the greatest tragedy of human history. Wo have watched the increasing rivalry of armaments with consternation, we have implored our Government to convene the nations of Europe, and seek to arrest the mischief before it'was too late. It is now too late. The explosion lias come. Look whero you may you can see no ray of comfort. Doath, anguish, starvation, and despair are written , over Western Europe. As if the Balkan wars had not been enough, hell has been let loose among the inost civilised nations #f Europe,- It.is the triumph of diplomacy over .common sense,, ofiorco over 'reason,, or brutality 1 over humanity. "It may perhaps be the'last; time that the working classes.'of 'the'" Continent will allow themselves to be inarched to destruction..at'tlie'dietatesof diplomacy and'.by the orders of their war io^ds.?'