FIGHT TO WIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 189, 13 August 1941, Page 8

FIGHT TO WIN

PACIFIST’S ALARM DEFEAT WILL BE HELL WHY I SUPPORT THE WAR. (Bertrand Lord Russell, distinguished philosopher, one-time pacifist, who now lives in the United States, has I expressed these views in a letter to the New York Tinies.) Down to and including the time ol Munich, I supported, the policy of conciliation. In this I was in agreement with the majority of my countrymen. I went further than the majority in believing that war should, at this moment in history, be avoided, how-1 ever great the provocation. I changed I later through the influence ox the | same events that changed Chamber-: lain, Lord Lothian, Lord Halifax and j most of the previous advocates of I peace. In view of what has happened j since, it would seem that it might have j been better for the world if Germany ! had been opposed at an earlier stage; ; but I still think that the arguments: for the policy of conciliation were verystrong. These arguments, as I saw i them, were three. First: Germany had been treated j with abominable injustice at Versail-; les and afterwards; what the Nazis! demanded was no more than Germany i had a right to claim—equality with' other nations, and union under the German flag of all populations that so ! desired. Collapse of Arguments. This first argument collapsed with Hitler's occupation of the non-Ger-man parts of Czechoslovakia. Until then, the German Government had done nothing that could rightly be called foreign conquest. The world had been told, in the most emphatic terms possible, that Hitler’s aspirations would be satisfied as soon as all Germans were in the Reich. Second: It was expected by all the experts that a new great war, if it occurred, would be far more horrible than the last .... So far ... . the war, dreadful as it is, has not been as bad as was feared. This may cease to be true at any moment if a largescale attempt at invasion is made; perhaps the horror has been postponed to the moment that best suited Hitler’s plans. But in the case of aerial attacks on Great Britain, it seems clear that he has done his utmost; and this has been enormously less destructive than had been predicted in the most authoritative prognostications, the reasons being, apparently, that defence against aerial attacks has made very great progress during the last few years.

On the other hand, the fate of subject populations, more particularly in Poland, has been a good deal worse than had seemed probable. On both these grounds the arguments for armed resistance to German ambitions have been shown to be stronger than they appeared to be before the war began. Democracy’s Only Hope. Third: I learned that if once there was war, the issue, whoever was nominally victorious, would be military dictatorship. It was obvious that, for the duration of the war, every belligerent Government would need dictatorial powers, and it was far from certain that, if the previously democratic nations won, they would re-establish democracy when peace had been concluded. There came a moment—some will say one moment, some another —1 when it became evident that Germany | would destroy the independence of the' democracies one by one if they did not combine in armed defence. From that moment the only hope for democracy was war.

Before the war began it might have seemed preposterous to suppose that Hitler could aim at world domination. Now it seems probable that he does so, and his success is sufficiently possible to call for the utmost vigour in resistance.

I know that the war, even if it ends in victory, involves very grave dr.-gers to democracy and freedom. I fear also that British war aims—which Mr. Churchill still refuses to state—will probably be found, if we win, to have contained an element of imperialism. I deplore the short-sighted illiberality of British policy in India, particularly the harsh imprisonment of such a man as Nehru. I scarcely dare to hope that the world after the war will be a good world, if we win, but if we lose it will be hell, probably for a long time to come. It is a tragic alternative, but it must be met with such hope as the times permit and with a determination that in winning the war we shall not lose what we are fighting for. There is one hope that is important, and, I think, not Utopian, that at the end of the war some step, less ineffective than the League of Nations, may be taken toward the Federation oi the World.