ANTI-WAR PROPAGANDA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19806, 23 May 1934, Page 4

ANTI-WAR PROPAGANDA

To the Editor of " The Timaru Herald ” Sir, —It is very gratifying to read in the Christchurch news of your paper that perhaps some attempt will be made to spread anti-war propaganda among the pupils of the schools. (We have already lost sixteen years.) Mention is made of the Ontario Department of Education, which proposes to distribute 5000 copies of Beverley Nichol’s book, “Cry Havoc,” among the schools. “Cry Havoc” may not be the ideal book for the purpose, but it is the best of its kind published to date, and is worthy of being read by young and old. It will tell you what a dangerous position the world is in to-day—how we are on the verge of another war. It deals in a straightforward, fearless, sincere manner with such questions as armaments and armament firms, the Yellow Press, The City of Hope (Geneva), the latest developments in poison gas, the teaching of history in schools, the inculcation of the international outlook and the part that the aeroplane will play in the coming war. It is high time that something was done to spread the ideas of international goodwill. Once a year we remember that the last war (like the next war) was a war to end war. That is as far as we get. For the remainder of the year we do nothing to prevent the steady encroachment of the evil forces which are pushing us into another war. At present the world is full of war-talk. The cable news has been particularly bellicose of late. The Disarmament Conference is almost defunct. The League of Nations does not include three powerful nations like U.S.A., Russia and Germany. Another armament race has begun, with the nations of the world spending at least one thousand million poilnds a year on death dealing weapons. A pretty state of affairs! Civilisation, it is called by some, but it seems that another word is necessary. And we are supposed to sit down and wait for whatever is being prepared for us. Hear what Beverley Nichols says: “ ‘War’ is still, to the historian, to the politician, and to the film-director, a grand and inspiring affair. We want another word. What is it to be? It must be a word devoid of decency and a word devoid of sense. A word with no historical associations, carrying no

sonorous echoes of tragic beauty. A word trailing no clouds of glory. There is no such word. And the only phrase which truly expresses the situation is

| ‘mass murder of civilians.’ It is a . clumsy phrase, but, even so, it is better than the word ‘war.’ It you take this . phrase and substitute it for the word ‘war,’ you arrive at some grotesque , conclusions. You are forced to face the fact that the ‘mass murder of civilians’ is an extremely odd way of settling international problems.” He visits an English armament firm and reads the firm's estimates for work undertaken. “This is how this great Englisii firm has recently been coni tributing to civilisation by supplying j instruments of death to no less than fourteen Governments simultaneously. Two of these Governments were, at that very moment, actually engaged in hostilities. Yet, Armsville was supplying them both.” And again, “British armament firms have been supplying the Turkish artillery with shells which were fired into the Australian, New Zealand and British troops as they were scrambling up Anzac Cove and Cape Helles.” Did you notice in the cable news a few days ago that an English firm had supplied eighty aeroplane engines to Germany? Only for commerce, mind you! Of poison gas he says, quoting from the late Thomas A. Edison: “Neither I nor anybody of my acquaintance has discovered any protection against the aeroplane even in its present state of development. With the aid of ‘Lewisite,’ the most deadly poison gas yet produced, London’s population could be choked to death in three hours.” He visits a gas-mask factory in England. (In the next war, of course, every man, woman and child will have a gas-mask issued.) “Those are parts of gas-masks,” said Mr X. “There seem a great many of them.” “Yes. There are forty thousand.” “Really? That’s encouraging.” “Encouraging?” Mr X raised his eyebrows. “Well—it is nice to know there will I be at least forty thousand people left in England after the next war.” “In England?” Mr X stared at me. “But those gas-masks are going to Turkey.” “Very interesting. Forty thousand gas • masks going to Turkey! Forty thousand Turks saved to carry on the torch of progress.” I fear I have encroached on your valuable space. I could go on quoting examples from “Cry Havoc” until I had written out the whole book. Perhaps a few of the few readers who will trouble to read this may be interested enough to study the book for themselves. They will read there the remedies that Mr Nichols suggests. Before closing I should like to give his answer to the militarists’ standard question. “What would you do if you found a great hulking German attacking your sister? Wouldn't you fight then?” “I should behave exactly in the same way as if I found a great hulking Britisher attacking my aiste:— i.e., I should give him a ‘sock’ in the jaw.”—l am, etc., PAX. Timaru, May 22.