CAUSED OF WAR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20510, 31 August 1936, Page 4

CAUSED OF WAR

ECONOMIC POINT OF VIEW ADDRESS BY MR R. S. WHEELER An interesting lecture on the economic and social causes of war was given by Mr R. S. Wheeler at the conclusion of the monthly meeting of the Tim ar u Labour Party on Saturday. Mr S. A. Odell occupied the chair. Mr Wheeler said that to study the question of war and how it arose in modern society one must study history and those who had studied history would observe that war had been the chief agent of civilisation in the early stages of man’s development. To-day our journals were fiillqd with rumours of wars and there was a general rearmament of nations great and small. However much we detested war any movement in opposition to it Could not conceivably continue to stand on three ! legs, the League of Nations, pure pacificism, and opposition to imperial- I ist and capitalist war. The influence of i the League of Nations had diminished in direct ratio to the increase of the tension of imperialist economic conflict. In regard to armaments —o must realise that they were merely a reflection of the needs of the economic system. While the British Empire today was overwhelmingly opposed to another war, no hope of a permanent peace could be built upon a mood. Given a change of economic interest, a suitable propaganda, the right excuse at the psychological moment, and the war fever would again sweep the nation as it did in 1914. Only a widespread knowledge of how wars were made could prevent a nation from losing its head at such a moment. Never more than to-day, said Mr Wheeler, did the issue of peace or war lie in the hands of the ordinary citizen, and the most common error was the assumption that all wars were alike and must be evil. The economist’s attitude towards war was one of stark realism. It insisted on the differences of different types -of war. He did not condemn war and th/- use of force in all circumstances. While the pacifist might consider the essential feature of war as being the dreadful fact that one set of men killed another set of men, the economist investigated the economic and social conditions under which the killing took place, and considered that sometmies it might be justified and sometimes not. Three Types of Wars Mr Wheeler said that in modern times we could distinguish between three main types of wars, national wars, imperialist wars and civil wars. National wars were alWys led by the rising and developing fherchant and industrial classes. They had to lead wars against the feudal forces at a time when the rising capitalist system needed larger areas than the feudal village, town or ducal estate in which to sell the products of their machines. The bourgeoisie, in destroying feudalism and “creating” nations could be regarded as representing the interests of the workers. It was the interests of the masses which formed the standard by which an economist must judge any given situation. National wars would always occupy the attention of the workers until national aspirations were satisfied. The stifling of nationalist tendencies would inevitably drive the proletariat into a Hance with the native bourgeoisie. The most striking example of this was the alliance of Mahatma Gandhi and the mill-owners of Bombay, Ahmedabad and Calcutta, who had financed him in his nationalist campaign.

Imperialist Wars Imperialist wars, in a modern sense, dominated the second stage of the development of the European bourgeoisie, said Mr Wheeler, and they were of two types. Those in the early stages were directed against technically backward countries. They followed the lines of least resistance, which promised easy victories for comparatively modest expenditure. Between 1862 and 1912 the British Empire increased its square mileage from about 5,000,000 to 11,000,000, the French Empire from about 500,000 to 5,000,000 the American Empire from 1,500,000 ‘o 4,000,000 and the German Empire from 250,000 to 1,000,000 square miles. This phase ended with the division of the world between the chief capitalist nations. Inevitably the conflict between these powers themselves intensified, as certain States, such as Germany, who had entered late into the race for colonies, wanted a greater share in the spoil. While the World

War was chiefly an imperialist war certain national aspirations did exist because for the Poles and Czechs, for example, the war had no other aspect than the satisfaction of their long repressed national aspirations. But however sonorous the speeches of Allied statesmen about the rights of selfdtermination, these national aspirations could only be fulfilled in so far as they did not interfere with predominant tendencies. In Europe today there were still over 40,000.000 people in 20 States nationally oppressed. National or Imperialist War? Mr Wheeler went on to explain that in deciding whether a war was a national or imperialist one, the important thing was to find out what the principal combatants were really fighting about, which was seldom the same thing as what they thoight was the cause of the conflict. In the first Imperialist World War, the majority of workers were in favour of it. Only a few people, the Russian Bolsheviks and some Mensheviks, some German Left Wing people, the Independent Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and New Zealand Labour Party were exceptions. The workers could do nothing to stop the war. They did not see —while they were in it they did not want to see—the imperialist character of the war. They fought as Britons for Democracy versus Militarism, as the German workers fought for the defence of their Fatherland against invasion. Civil Wars In explaining the causes of civil war Mr Wheeler said that Britain would be a very different state to-day but for the Cromwellian Revolution. Through some civil wars social changes had been made by sudden leaps and progress

had shown a speed unequalled in other times. A study of books available in the local library revealed the fact that only the Communists were prepared to argue the case for establishing socialism by force. The reformist movements like those of the British Labour Party and French Popular Front claimed that the change could be made by constitutional means. Tire revolutionists might justify the civil wars of the past, but they ignored the three technical conditions which must exist before success was possible. These were: (1) the weapons must be in the hands of the war trained workers; (2) the bourgeoisie must be demoralised (as in Russia in 1917) and (3) the troops must be unreliable as far as the existing government was concerned, and not offer any resistance to the workers and be willing to assist the revolutionaries. Without these conditions, which could be found only after a devastating war, there was no hope for victory.