“MASS PSYCHOLOGY AND WAR”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23514, 31 May 1938, Page 7

“MASS PSYCHOLOGY AND WAR”

IO Ilia EDITOH Sir,—Your leading article dealt with the above subject in a general and international manner, and called tor no comment, but your corresppndent “ Less War Talk ” narrows his criticism down to “ local" individuals, so that it may become interesting to question his sentiments. As perhaps one of the most inveterate writers in your columns on the subject of peace and war, may I direct your readers to the opposite view? “Less War Talk” writes that those people (old shirkers) who refer to the inevitability of war are as dangerous as if they scattered smallpox germs; but are they? Most of those Bntisn people who say that war is inevitable say so, not because they think it, but because a literal read of the Bible tells them so. Such as " Less War Talk say that another European war would shatter civilisation, or wipe out mankind. We say not so, but it is " Jacob s trouble ” that we must go through Is it like spreading smallpox germs to warn our countrymen how to escape a thorough battering to bring us to our spiritual senses? Is it not well that, in our darkest hour to come (which need not be dark at all), our countrymen should have the certain knowledge that our civilisation is not ending, but only just be ginning, and that on the morrow God]s Will is then to be done on earth, as it is .in heaven. — I am. etc. G. Steel