THE NO MORE WAR MOVEMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22833, 18 March 1936, Page 7

THE NO MORE WAR MOVEMENT

TO THE EDITOR Sir, —The discussion the No More War Movement reminds me that when I was a delegate at the Returned Soldiers’ conference, held in Christchurch in 1919, I opposed a remit that called on the Government to enforce the law against military defaulters. A delegate from Gisborne, stripping to expose the medical aids to support bis mangled body, expressed the opinion of the Returned Soldiers’ movement when he said: “The military defaulter should be put up against the wall and shot,” and wound up by saying. “ and the man who supports him deserves to be put up nganist a wall and shot.” At the time I wondered how a conscientious objector who stayed at home could be the cause of anyone’s mangled body. I wonder no longer. When the. conscientious objectors band together and oppose any form of military defence in an aggressive manner one can understand how in the event of war we may once again be so unprepared that lives are lost, fighting such rearguard actions as was fought at Mons or holding the trenches for years until men were trained. Had sufficient trained men been there in time to back up the -charge that captured Gallipoli, what a different story might have been told, and how much shorter would have been the campaigng against Turkey. Would any of the N.M.W.M. members say the best way to secure industrial peace is to disband unions? Just imagine the militant waterside workers and other members of the Alliance of Labour that during the depression not only maintained industrial peace, but in addition maintained their awards and agreements, bemg asked to do such an idiotic thing! Their reply would be that it, would be an industrial peace at the terms of the “boss” class, which would use every labour traitor to break down awards and agreements by _ competition with dole workers who are sick of unemployment. In exactly the same manner the abolition of the army would enable such enemy countries as the Japanese to impose their terms of peace even to labour competition with their rice-fed and loin-clothed coolie workers. I now know why the Gisborne delegate to the Returned Soldiers’ Association Conference said the conscientious objector should he put up against a wall and shot. The papers for some time in Australia have been telling about the Japanese sampans mysteriously appearing from time to time in Australian waters. This has caused great discussions as to the best defence against aggression. The Federal Parliament in Australia deals with defence, but it may interest the Labourites in the N.M.W.M. to read what the Labour Queensland acting-Prime Minister. Mr P. Pease, has to say. In an article entitled “Queensland, the Most Vulnerable Part of Australia,” in the Queensland Worker of March 3, Mr Pease says; “Indeed, it can be held with truth that from (he point of view of aggression alone Queensland is in many respects the most vulnerable part of Australia, and that it is in the particular interests of the whole of the Commonwealth to have that State populated and developed.” That quotation proves that Labourites in Queensland are as anxious to help in defending the country from enemies abroad as they arc in organising workers to defend themselves against enemies within (ho country. Putting one’s head, like the ostrich, underground and refusing to see danger will not defend us against if. In view of the situation abroad, the completion of our main trunk railways is obviously necessary to transfer soldiers and munitions to tiny point of attack and is as necessary as trained soldiers and equipment are to defend New Zealand.—l am, etc., J. E. MaoManus. TO THE EDITOR Sir, —For the sake of your readers who are following the correspondence in your columns, I wish to expose the underlying fallacy of such writers as G. Steel. The principles underlying his rending of the Bilile are responsible for what seems little short of blasphemy to a New Testament Christian. G. Steel expresses these principles in his letter of the seventeenth, when he writes, “Both (i.e.. the Old and Now Testaments) arc the Word of God,

and both are equal. The former is largely instruction to the nation: the New Testament widens out the instruction chiefly to the individual.” This is completely erroneous, especially “ both are equal.” This can be tested, / 1. I might ask Mr Steel how many wives and concubines he keeps, for this is a commonplace of the Old Testament. I might ask him why he does not keep slaves, seeing slavery is legislated for in the Old Testament. He must also regard the law of “ life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, etc., etc.,” as an eternally binding word of God, although Jesus said it was not. Here our Lord takes the ground from him. Witches also should be put to death, and “he that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, shall be utterly destroyed.” The commendation of that Hebrew woman who treacherously killed the enemy that took refuge in her tent is from God: “Blessed be Jael among women." Ruthless warfare is a divine ordinance for ever, no quarter being permitted, and the law of Deuteronomy permits a soldier to bring into his harem any beautiful captive woman. I do not touch on the ceremonial law, though the writer of the letter to the Hebrews writes for the purpose of showing that on hi s point the Old Testament is not equal to the New. I could multiply ethical and social aspects which Christianity rejects. It simply does not get round the difficulty by saying that it was by God’s command that ruthless warfare and these i above-mentioned social customs were for the nation, for individuals in the nation carried them out. There is also the Old Testament idea of the social unit being the whole family [see Achan), so that a whole family may be destroyed for a father’s sin. i. But, again, one cannot speak of the Old Testament” as if it speaks with one voice. A great deal that is given in the earlier parts is condemned in the later. In the teaching of the prophets and in the Psalms (allowing for the Imprimatory Psalms) we have remarkably high religious and ethical teaching, valid for all time. But even this is not complete. The true principle of Biblical interpretation is that of “the progressiveness of Revelation." I am amazed that so many of our Bible defenders have not grasped this, seeing that, for instance, Dr Orr, of Glasgow, in “ The Problem of the Old Testament,” written SO years ago, against certain critical positions, develops this, and also in several “ Fundamentalist ” journals I have lately seen it expounded. That is, the people of Israel rose from class to class in the Divine school till full truth came in Christ, the Lord made flesh. God used “ the graded method.” Or the dawn was dark and grey; gradually light came and objects were clearer; then the sun arose—the Light of the World. In. “God and Aly Neighbour” Blatchford long ago made mincemeat of the Bible on G. Steel’s principle, but his book cannot stand against that principle which regards the Old Testatment as the record of a growing, developing revelation of God, preparatory to the coming of Christ, Whose record is the New Testament. In the Old Testament itself this development can be traced in every doctrine. One will suffice—’Achan’s whole family is destroyed with him (Joshua vii, 22 ff). 2 Kings xiv, 5, records how a king did not put to death the children of his father’s assassins, according to a law found in Deut. xxiv, 16. which must be later than the time of Joshua. And Ezekiel xviii emphactically repudiates the ideas of Joshua’s day. Knowledge grew from more to more. Dr Orr gives three laws governing the progressiveness of Revelation: (I) It must take men up at the stage at which it finds him; (2) Revelation can be held responsible only for the new element which it introduces; (3) it is the function of Revelation to lay hold on whatever better elements there may be in the state of mind of its recipients. Non-recognition of this renders the Biblical interpretations of G. Steel, and others like him, useless because erroneous. 1 hope help has been given by this letter to some whose conscience leads them to judge all things by Christ—the Son, by Whom God speaks to us now (Heb. i, 1).—1 am. etc., S. F. Hunter.