“THE REALITIES OF WAR”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22397, 19 October 1934, Page 14

“THE REALITIES OF WAR”

A public meeting, convened by the Anti-War Movement, was held on Tuesday evening. Mr John Gilchrist gave a lecture on “The Realities of War,” his remarks being illustrated by pictuies taken on the battlefields during 1914-18. Mr Gilchrist, in his opening statement, referred to the importance of watching! over the child mind in order to protect it from that “savage survival” that makes for the perpetuation of war. No one wishing for the abolition of war should provide toy soldiers for children. He thought it was a mean, or perhaps thoughtless act, to cause the little minds to envisage war as something bright and beautiful; for if this foundation were once laid jn the child mind the steps toward a strong militaristic outlook were easily taken. The heroic or mimicking age of youth followed the baby stage, and was, in the devilish nature of things, appealed to by various " imitatc-the-eoldiCr” movements. Boys were blinded by steel glitter, deafened with the drum roar, dazzled with uniforms and flattery, fooled with drills and marches, seduced with ribbons, “ Teddy ” hats, medals, pictures, picnics, and the wild life in the woods. Their wills were killed by a thousand drills in the slave’s crowning virtue —obedience. Later on, as adults, they could be likened to bewildered moths .who rushed into a flame of fire because it was bright, and thereby committed suicide. In the glittering “glory” of war multitudes of the people practically romraitted suicide. In the pictures he would show he would demonstrate what a very foul and loathsome business war really was. It constituted a sacrifice for nothing. The desire for world power was its mainspring. Imperialistically minded persons visualised the glitter and glamour of grand courts. Mystery men flitted from place to place to seek the confidence of those in high offices of State, and through this were enabled to gather in enormous sums though commissions on armament orders they had secured for great firms. With these sums they obtained a controlling interest in the most influential papers of the world. It was then quite easy to gain the ear and confidence of the great masses of tho people. The wasted human effort during the war of 1914-18 equalled the labour of 1,000,000 men working a 44-hour week for 3000 years. Thirty thousand persons would require to work for 100 years to produce the shells used by the British alone. Ships sent to the bottom of the sea equalled the labour of 600,000 shipyard hands for 100 years. Figures prepared by Dr Nicolas Murray Butler, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, showed that the world war cost 30,000,000 lives and eighty thousand million pounds in property losses. With this money the speaker asserted that every family in the United States of America, Canada, Australia, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Franco, Belgium, Germany, and Russia could have been provided with a £SOO house, furnished with £2OO worth of furniture and placed on five acres of land worth £2O an acre. This very destructive effort of 1914-18 was held by the statesmen of all countries to be one that would for ever put an end to war. But to-day Groat Britain was spending £2OO per minute in preparing for another war, and at the same time was spending £1,000,000 per day in interest payments for past wars. All other countries were in much the same position.

At the conclusion of his address Mr Gilchrist was accorded a vote of thanks.