PARTISANSHIP AND WAR.

Southland Times, Issue 22956, 31 July 1936, Page 9

PARTISANSHIP AND WAR.

, To the Editor. i Sir, —It is considered that we are in ■ this year of grace 1936 much more : highly civilized than were our prede- ; cessors of a thousand years back. ' Perhaps of our customs, our science, : our physical culture, this is true; ot l our mental outlook it is false. We are > not one whit better or more sanely E minded than were the people of those 1 A citizen is one bound by the laws [ and regulations of a community or, ! more broadly speaking, of a nation, f He is influenced to a great extent by . its mos maiorum. His universal out- , look is blurred and almost obliterated by the national outlook of his countiy. ’ Citizenship is practically synonymous with partisanship and it is partisanship which retards civilization. It is partisanship which creates wars, military and economic. A good citizen is all 2 very well and undeniably a necessity, 1 but let him also see beyond the borders : of his own country and appreciate the viewpoint of other peoples. ■ The British Empire has her Rule Britannia,” in Germany they sing their "Deutschland Über Alles,” Signor Mus- : solini lifts his chin skywards for the glory of Italy. It is like children 1 shouting “I’m the king of the castle. ' Anything more selfishly grasping than 1 the nationalities of the present era ■ would be difficult to visualize. The 1 attitude is every nation for itself and i the devil take the hindermost. Includi ing Abyssinia. : We sit and cry that we dont want 1 war. Yet we do nothing about it. To- ■ day governments the world over are 1 squandering colossal sums on arraa " 5 ments, to-day men are utilizing what - mental ability they were given in de- ’ vising new and ingenious ways ot maiming, killing and exterminating i other peoples. What cannot be gained , by debate and arbitration, by fair open I discussion, not “diplomacy, and by r the functioning of men’s mental appar- , atus in a fully humanitarian direction, cannot rightfully be gained at all. But ’ we are back to the stone age ana ’ might is to be right. If you wish for ‘ war, prepare for war. To put one’s finger on the root or 1 the trouble is not difficult; it is this 1 partisanship, this war-mindedness. in the churches, it has been said that there will be one more great war, in which all evil will be blotted off the earth, and then peace. That there will ; be much innocence and good blotted i out with the evil is merely incidental ; to the process. In this very town . Christ was recently referred to as the great Dictator”—a kind of glorified j Hitler or Mussolini, one gathers. That is the Church. We know all about the 1 statesmen. They must put their counj try on the map or they won t get back in next election. And so the mass of the people, too tired after the fqrtyJ hour week to do much intelligent 3 thinking on their own account, accepts ' the “inevitability” of war as inevitable. J This is 1936. Ponder it, and then call ' us broad minded, unbiased, highly civilized. . Mars is in the ascendant; shining 2 luridly in coloured lights .to attract 2 the moths to their doom, its watch--1 word: J DIVIDE EQ IMPERA. F Invercargill, July 28, 1936.