WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13942, 30 June 1909, Page 7

WAR.

To the Tl.ltt r of the "Tiniaru Herald " Sir, —The subject of war is easy to write upon if one is guided by the I.iffer instincts. Nothing easier even yet than to arouse enthusiasm over the strbitrament of the sword. As the animal rudiments are still to be found in the.-phvsicai luxly so there.remains *atent in the human character the abstract rudiments of savagery that easily resnond- to the sound of the bugle, pibroch, and slogan. The flowing pen is checked when the subject "of grim visaged war is reviewed in the light of the past, present, and future. The bellicose spirit wanes and one reaches for the peace offering, the olive branch, and desires to smoke the calumet of peace.

I.—ln the upward straggles of the Jmman race war has not been without messing. The slipping of the dogs of war has been a great factor in civilisation. The missionary closely followed by the powder cart, and vice versa, have often helped the raw- upwards. The ancient Hebrews trained their anthropomorphic conceptions of a Diety and cried: "The Lord is a man of war." Cromwell was imbued with the same spirit, and could light the torch of war rpligionsly. Pain, cruelty, destruction, death is everywhere. The blight on the plants is. destroyed by the introduction of a larger bng, the small birds kept -down by hawks and owls. The sea life has enemies on all sides. The carnivore is ' l red in tooth' and claw." Man is the worst of- all. He destroys beasts by the million for r'afly food and—bad luck to him—plans " Dreadnoughts-" to wipe ont nations if necessary. It was an old philoponher who worried over these thinss, anil declared that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together - until now." Religious wars h*ve been the most bitter, antl have most deeply imbued the hands in blood. Jlut the race moves on and up. We no longer go to battle in the name of religion. The age has become tolerant, humane, liberal, and enlightened. II. —There is a pessimism abroad at i'.xe- present d; t y. ihe thinker remembers that many times, nations have been destroyed th.it seemed to be the l.tb-st to survive. Civilisations can he .built tip, but man as yet has no p<»wer to preserve them. Man himself is not a finished nrodnct, and no civilisation is indestructible. The stupid blunder some still make when they I Link of "creation ' as something Una! and complete, and finished six thousand years ago. Tilings are " being created," anu there is no finis 11 or finality. The wnote universe is in a state or flux, and man falls into line with it as he is a part of the whole, a link in the chain of continuous creation. The battering ram, the bow and arrow, the Munderbus, the Lee-Metford, cordite, •uieianite, dynamite, and all the other " ites," have been mighty factors in the* jinx so far as man is concerned. Again and again the higher nations have been destroyed by the lower. Great civilisations in India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Peru, have been exterminated by the lower. In every case the barbarians survived and pitched their tents amid the broken walls and ruins of old cities, the people of whom fancied themselves immortal, and were conceited enough to think they were chosen people. People still like to. picture their Deity as having parochial prejudices in favour of chor »«m peoples—m Judea and Great Brirain for example. Nature does favour only those races who love the simple strenuous life, and whose paternal and maternal instincts are not destroyed, it is not war that destroys nations, but it is a drift into luxury that is followed bv the empty cradle. A nation with a "persistent declining birthrate reaches -a point where she cannot resist an invader, and down she falls, quietl'v, slowly, at first so imperceptibly that it is unnoticed, but momentum is gathered as the centuries glide ~v- rio rio far as Britain is concerned the evils mav be avoided. She has historical and "scientific knowledge the old civilisations had not. The only war that seems possible to me is a united Kast against a united Vest, an Armageddon that Lord Roberts said years ago would be fought out soniewhere. in Asia Minor. Sir Henry -Maine in his work on ' : International" Law " has optimistically .said that " man has never been so f*-'ro-cious so stupid as to submit to such an evil as war without some kind ot effort to prevent it,"and ho has shown how great is "the number of ancient institutions which bear th ■ marks of a d«»ign to stand in the way «>f war or to provide an alternative to it." This gives confidence to consider the last point :—' . 11l —The future ot war. In his third volume of positive philosophy, Vu<ntste Comte has well and wisely said:—"Here begins the last phase ot warfare—that series ot commercial wars in which, at first spontaneously and then systematical y, .the ™' ltarv spirit retires behind the industrial and strives to retain its place in the social Hflnoinr by conquering advantageous 4tlements for each nation or by deSovin! the resources ot foreign competition Lamentable as have been some Z the conflict* of tins kind the policr must be regarded as l™P™*t hnunnnohr as it announce* the cletajot military activity, s.nd the preponderance of industry, which is thus established in a temporal sen- as the principle and the aim of modern «™isation." This is very applicable to the commercial jealousies between Untain ;»nd Germany at the present moment. Tta*> war of the sword has been followed bv the war of the loom. The years «*' peace have brmitht aliont a German industrial war frirtil which we are suffering, but which will ultimately mean good to all. When tlie working classes in Germany, France, and Britain stretch hands" across the sea and .get to realise that it is to their interests to resist greed and capitalism, arid taxation which hangs about the.r mecks like a millstone in the interests <o£ standing armies and navies, the present slate of affairs will cease. Man

outgrew slavery and feudalism and lie is outgrowing war. Some form of practical Socialism on International lines will prove effective. It is doing so now in a quiet way. The Socialistic conscience is revolting against war, and ui- are passing from the old to the new. What form that Socialism will take we cannot define as yet, hut it must he a co-oyeration with room enough for a joint stock individualism, —I am, ftc,

JAMES CHAPPLE llanse, St. Andrews, 28-6-'O9.