War and Self Defence.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17063, 16 August 1917, Page 6

War and Self Defence.

A WEffiD IDEA

A FEW WORDS TO LABOUR EXTREMISTS.

WHY BRITAIN IS AT WAR.

In the London Sunday Chronicle Mr. Robert Baltchford talks straightforwardly to Mr. Jowett, M.P., and the Independent Labour Party. Mr. Blatchtord is a Socialist and generally a most progressive democrat. Mr. Jowett i a viionary and malcontent with a bad kink. The Independent Labour Party has this distinction: that it is not independent, and does not truly represent Labour. . Its general attituc^ in the war is antiBritish, and to ..that extent it depends en the Kaiser and his Junkers for support and countenance. Everything that Mr. Blatchford writes in this very lucid and timely article" applies to a raucous extremist minority of irieconcilables and peace maniacs in Australasia. Incidentally, Mr. Blatchford preaches a little sermon to conscientious objectors. With such of those as are genuine we have no quarrel, though it has never yet been explained to us why they don't go out with the Red Cross. But the average conscientious objector, so called, is merely a sidling and evasive gentleman who conscientiously shrinks from the idea of risking his skin.

npHE I.L.P. Conference was what .-*- one might call a, heady function. It was marked by wron'g-headedness, thick-headedness, and swelled-headed-ness. Nothing so egregiously and contemptibly silly has happened since Mr. Ford's comic ark of peace set out upon its great adventure.

Still, as the I.L.P. counts for nothing and can do nothing, I should certainly not have mentioned its conference were it not for the very remarkable effusion of Mr. P. W. Jowett, M.P. Mr. Jowett is an old friend of mine. I have always regarded him as the most sincere, the most honest, and the most sensible man in the I.L.P. What he is doing in the I.L.P. gallery; how he can shut his eyes to facts a,s obvious as a tidal wave or an earthquake; how he contrived to make a speech so hopeless, so muddled, and so absurd as the speech with which he opened that conlerence, really does, as the Canadians say, "get my goat." I did not think it possible for Mr. Jowett to have got into such a mental tangle, and I have been marvelling how he did it. However, I don't propose to wrestle with Mr. Jowett's baseless assertions and glaring contradictions. It would do no good. A man capable of such <» speech is incapable of logical reasoning as he is of; weighing evidence. There i$ only one of Mr. Jowett's many errors that it seems necessary or useful to deal with, and that is to be answered because it is an error very often made in connection with this and with other wars*

Mr. Jowett said at the end of his weirdly distorted oration that he is "not an.advocate of the policy of nonresistance." He said, "Whatever in the nature of protective armaments js necessary to keep the laud of my birth from an invading force I would vote m provide."

But while he believes in protecting the land of his birth against invasion, he does not admit that we ought to have gone to war with Germany in 1914. He claims that we ought to liave waited,, as America waited, until the Germans sank some of our ships. I have heard many men speak in the same way. They generally say, "If the country were invaded we would take up arms to defend it." And I generally make answer, "Suppose there were no arms for you to take up, and suppose you did not know how to use them?"

Let us examine this curious idea. These persons admit that a nation has a right to defend itself. But they, would paralyse the defence by waiting for the attack. That is because they have never given an hour's thought or study to war and the ways of war. Let us suppose that two swashbuckling bandits are arming for a fight.' Let us suppose that one friend of ours who lives west of them is very nervous and apprehensive, and that another friend of ours who lives east of them is also very nervous. Let us suppose that we have reason to believe that the two armed bandits have aa eye on our wellfilled safe and fertile fields'. Are we to sit still while the bandits beat and rob our two neighbours because we onl ( y believe in sef-defence, and they have not yet attacked us? Or are we to agree with our two friends that if the bandits attack one they shall have to fight all? Is a war of self-defence any the less a war of self-defence because the defenders are allied with, other defenders against a common enemy? Is there any reason to believe that had Germany defeated France and Russia she would j have refrained from attacking us? j A FEW QUESTIONS. | Is it not proved to the hilt that Germany meant to defeat France and Russia and then to iall upon us? Had the Germans beaten France they would have taken both Belgium and Holland. They woud have taken Calais. Thay would probably have absorbed or dominated the whole of Scandinavia. Then when they attacked us we should not have had a friend or an Ally. As I pointed out years before the war, th,e defeat of France meant the isolation and peril of the British Empire. Unprepared as we should have been had we remained neiitrai, we should have been most certainly ruined and defeated. What could we have done? Mr. Jowett and his friends seem to suppose we could sit comfortably here on our islana and defy the great German world confederation of Germany, A ustria, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, md very probably other nations. All ye have to do is to wait.until Lhe enemy invades us.

The enemy need not invade us. He could invade our colonies and India. Does the right of self-defence apply only to Great Britain? Aren't we allowed by the I.L.P. code of morals to defend Canada, Australia, South Africa, or New Zealand? Are we to sit still while -the enemy captures our coaling stations? Are we to lose India, and Egypt, and Malta, and the Suez Canal?

If we are percnitted to defend ourselves are we not permitted to begin until it is too late?. Suppose we did not join in with France and Russia, but waited. Wihat would happen to our trade and to our food supplies when our turn came ? Having plajyed a part which all the other nations would regard as ccxwardly and selfish, should wo have any right to complain if France and Russia turned upon us in the hour of our trial? SECRET DIPLOMACY NONSENSE. 3&ere is a very old motto about the wisdom of "getting your blow in first." It is a recognised part of the science of war. The nation which waits supinaly until an enemy attacks it gives over the choice of the time to its adversary. Very naturally the adversary chooses a time when his chances are good and the chances of the defenders are bad. Anyone with the smallest knowledge of military sicence or military history knows what Mr. Jowett's policy would lead to.

What do all the dark and mysterious mutterings about "secret diplomacy 11 amount to ? There was no secret about the Anglo - Russo - French Entente. Everyone in Europe who knew anything at all about foreign politics knew that France and Russia were really allied to resist an attack by Germany on one or the other.

Everyone who knew anything understood that our entente with France was dictated by our mutual interests. If any fault could be found with the Anglo-French relations, it was that there was not a formal and binding defensive alliance. We went to the help of France not because we had a secret diplomatic understanding with France, but because our own safety depended upon the safety, of' France. Now the thing I. want to make clear is.that if we are justified in defending ourselves' against invasion, we are justified in defending ourselves against starvation and against political, social, and financial ruin. And if we are justified in defending ourselves against attack, we are justified in attacking, for attack is tho best defence. And if we are justified in making war upon an enemy in our own defence, we are justified in making war upon an enemy n the defence of another nation whose safety is essential to ov.r safety*. Let us turn from the ethical side oi the question, and look at what I may call the business side.

Sivppose we had kept out of the war. France would certainly have been defeated; she was outnumbered, and she was not ready. The German Navy would have landed an army of invasion in Brittany, and would have cut off all supplies from America or England by blockade. We should have incurred the scorn and hatred of France. We should have seen the manaoles fastened tighter upon the Russian pteople. We should have left ourselves in danger of invasion, in danger of losing India, Egypt, and our colonies. We should have seen the small nations driven into the German confederation. We should most certainly have been lost; and we should have deserved ail we got. Fortunately, we chose the braver ana the nobler part. We went to the assistance of Raissia and France. We saved the situation with our navy until we could make an army. This protracted the war and enabled Russia to throw off her chains and expel he.r tyrants. It won for us the friendship of the French. It saved us and Europe from the domination of the unspeakable Huns.

Because of our co-operation in the war the Germans have been exposed for the barbarians they are, and the horrible Prussian menace has been checked.

To say, as Mr. Jowett says, that America has a better reason for enter, ing this war than we had is to convict oneself of ignorance and stupidity. America came in because her interests were menaced and her flag insulted, and because she recognised the oiliness of the enemy. We went into the war because Germany wantonly broke the peace, and because our interests and out honour were threatened.

If self-defence is justifiable, then we and the French, and the Russians, and the Belgians, and the Serbs are all justified in taking up arms against the comomn enemy.

I believe that the result of our entrance into this war will be the breaking of the Prussian menace and the establishment of such an alliance of the democratic and peace-loving nations as will make another war very irrmroba.ble.

If Mr. Jowett believes in self-defence, T suppose he would not sit tamely at home while a gang of cutthroats carried arms and ammunition into their den ready for an attack on bis home and

family. He would surely act while there was a chance of his action being successful. CONSULTING TH3 PEOPLE. There was just one chance of preventing this war. It was to tell the British nation frankly that they must prepare for defence. But when I told the nation that, the Government and the pacifists hooted me. What becomes of the foolish objection that the British people were not consulted before we made war? They could not be consulted. There was no time to consult them. The Germans took care of that. Our Navy had to be at its stations insantly, or it would have been too late. Everything that our Government could do to avert war was done. At the last the decision had to be made suddenly. There was no time to consult the people, and the people had been so systematically misled and deceived that they could not have been made to understand. Thousands of them do not understand now, and Mr. Jowett, I regret to see, is one of them.

It was strangely absurd of Mr. Jowett to tell his audience that if oiir people had been as well informed as America we should not have come into the war when the well-informed Americans had just come in. It is incredible that any sane and honest man can %t this time of day persuade himself that we should have acted morally, honourably, and sagaciously in allowing Germany and Austria to beat and subdue our Allies in detail while we waited for our turn to come.

It gives one to laugh to hear that feeble, purblind policy described as selfdefence. And how can anyone read the newspapers and fail to realise what Prussianism really is and what it wants ?

Gentlemen, it "gets my goat," it does really. Where can I get the national flags of Panama and Chili and the Argentine, and who has a copy of the Chinese national anthem?