PACIFIST PROPAGANDA.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18776, 26 October 1932, Page 9

PACIFIST PROPAGANDA.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l have to thank Captain Newton for answering my query so promptly, especially as I realise that it Is quite foreign to a naval olllcer to write about himself. I can, therefore, understand that what Captain Newton wrote about his personal naval service was only written in the light of an unavoidable reply to a challenge. At the same time, 1 cannot help thinking that the mere fact that be did see lighting service makes his contentions about war all the more inexplicable. 1 do not wish to disparage the work of the navy, as without it the army would not have been able to light at all, but lighting In the navy, while terrible while an action Is on, is, comparatively speaking, soon over, for belter or for worse. On the other hand, had Captain Newton had a taste of trench warfare in the dead of winter, with lighting sustained day after day, week after week, and even sometimes month after month, without relief, he would not paint such a rosy picture of war. A battle in the navy is short, sharp and clean; in the army modern warfare is a long-drawn-out, lllthy horror. You, Captain Newton, in the navy, quickly disposed of your dead by, merely dumping them overboard, and then washed down the decks to clean up the mess. We had to stand day after day, often up lo our waists in water, with the bodies of our one-lime comrades out in front of us, just killed, and so on, by various stages, to a slate of decomposiiTbn. Captain Newton, have you seen a rat gnawing at what was your living friend a few days previously? No, I think not. No, I am sure not. Otherwise you could not have written as you ha\e done.—l am, etc.. EX-SOLDIER,