The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1916. SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CV, Issue 16080, 29 September 1916, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1916. SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR.

The Nationalist Socialist Party of Great- Britain has done well - in reminding me minority ot bociaiists m tne oversea dominions who still need enlightenment, that the present war is being fought on their behalf as much as mat of any other section. A manifesto issued by the British Society expresses surprise and regret to find, from oversea Socialist journals, that a considerable number of colonial Socialists are still hostile to the war, whose true character it then describes. If anything more menacing to Socialism than Prussian junkerdom exists it .'has yet to be discovered, but a 'minority of Socialists has always been . unable to appreciate the junker peril. Its insistence on small troubles and the dislike or , apathy with which if views the greatest fight against is like that of a ,man who could only think • about' the ■ mosquitoes in a room while" hisr friends were building barricades and • seizing fire-irons to resist armed burglars. Or, in so "far as the attitude of the dissenting-Socialists is due to a belief in pacifism 'and the common interests of the " -n'roletarians of all countries,- 5 " it is like the conduct of. a man who mis-ht insist that he oould not be drowned by any flood, because, he was convinced that water power would be the greatest influence vet' discovered. The majority of Socialists have perceived that this war on the British -Emmre's nart is.a war for r>reservation, but it is not necessary to go further than the nno-es of a.Socialist journal published in this country to become aware that there are others who. still view it either as an outrasre, or as something that is far loss important" to thorn than their mosquitoes. If their freedom is saved it will be saved by others, and in snite of any influence they can exert.

The NaHonalist Socialist \Partv of Great Britain has not been known before bv that name. "Internationalism " was ihe motto of tho British Socialist Party, - a j motto -made in Germany. But the war has brought enlichten--1 mention'many .subiects,'. and a debate which took, olace recently in the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain may explain how the new description "Nationalist" has come into, being. The Conj gress very sensibly rejected a proposal to take Dart in an international peace conference, and, ■ when there was talk of German ' delegates being present, several I representatives declared that they I " would not tolerate further truck ! with German internationalists." ■ Internationalism, including - Ger--1 nians', has g-one out of fashion. 1 The German. Socialists have yet j to show that they were not simply i the decoy ducks of their GovernI nient, when they talked universal j peace at conference after conferI ence before rushing, almost witk--1 out a protest, at their neighbours' j throats. They may oppose the , war now that it is going badly , for_ them, but the facility with which they passed war credits in its earlier months will be lono> remembered by all but the most infatuated "internationalists" in other countries. The "international unity of. labour" somehow is not attractive, when German labour can include the sort of person who writes to his sweetheart boasting how he bayonettod seven women and four <?iiis in five minutes. Internationalism, not of laboui| only but of all men, is a srreat ideal, but it cannot be oblivious of vices, and, if it is' ever to be built up on a last in a 1 basis the wav to it must bo throua*h and not at the expense of nationalism. Thf>re is sound sense in the counlet : "That man's tlio best cosmopolite. "Who loves Ms native country best." The test for Hie internationalist 'j who thinks otherwise is not different from that set for the Christian: "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom, he hath not seen?"