War and Peace Realities

Waikato Times, Volume 117, Issue 19545, 6 April 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

War and Peace Realities

THERE IS a FRIEND of mine Who lives in a small village on the Ligurian coast and who employs a comfort- ■ ably fat and friendly woman as a cook. Once I happened to remark to him Jn this woman’s presence that I fancied I had been overcharged in a shop in Rapallo. She looked up and remarked with cold, bitter conviction, “ Rapallesl sono bestie! Doubtless, if political conditions had been different, it .would not have taken much to make 'her. cheer her menfolk the few kilometres down the 'hill from Zoagli, carrying weapons wherewith to “larn - ’ the inhabitants of Rapallo to be bestie. That is perhaps as good an exemplification, of Sir Norman Angell’s main thesis as can be found in ordinary individual experience. Wars, he says, are not caused by the machinations of armament manufacturers or greedy capitalists or machiavellian “international financiers.” He does not deny greed may play a part, but he maintains that it does so only when the gluttons are Suffering From a Confusion of Thought. The root cause in the modern world is the curious tendency of the average human being to regard with distrust and dislike the other human being who happens to live on the other side of a possibly quite artificial boundary. This tendency must, of course, always have had its share in the promotion of man’s militancy. It was helpful to the King of Nineveh when he was able to [persuade hte 'subjects that the citizens of Asshur were bestie. But in those wars greed did play an Intelligible part, If the King of Nineveh was victorious, he exacted from the conquered an indemnity consisting of so many head of cattle, so many vessels of fine gold, so' many measures of wheat, and so many virgins of both sexes. The reward for his risks and exertions could be computed in terms of consumable goods, some of which reached Ills subjects and made them better soldiers when he began his campaign in Palestine. Even if 'he • annexed the conquered territory, and undertook the responsibility and expense of governing it, he saw that-the tribute paid Yielded a Handsome Profit, which he spent on consumable goods. Sir Norman argues (what, indeed, he has argued for nearly 30 years) that the greed motive has ceased to have any real meaning. It might have meant something if the family of every British soldier In th(> Great War had expected to be allowed, in the event of victory, to choose some article of furniture from a German household. It survives, however, as a ghost to complicate the issues. We insist, Sir Norman maintains, on thinking that we are in some w|y better off when we have acquired territory, without asking ourselves what the acquisition means, either •to the community or to individuals, in the way of consumable goods. We talk about “markets” and “raw materials.” But there are more raw materials in the world than we have yet found a way of using, and everywhere we are trying to find ways of getting .rid of them —by ploughing cotton into the ground,< by burning wheat, and by dumping coffee into the sea. And what, in the name of common sense, is.a market except an area from which you draw goods you want to consume and cannot produce yourself in return for the consumable goods you sent there? And What Is There to Fight About fn That? Sir Norman points out . that there are people in the United States who would like to annex Canada, and that they are the same people who insist on imposing high duties on imports from Canada. They are the same people who clung to the Philippines, as an extension of .territory and now.want to grant independence to the Philippines because the sugai’ industry there, which is inside the

Views of Sir Norman Angell.

(iRy Edward Shanks in Sunday Times)

American tariff-wall, conflicts with Ameiican inlerests both at home and In Cuba. He points out also that French cloth manufacturers before the war declared that they could not support the competition of cloth from Alsace unless a heavy duty were imposed upon it. A political change accomplished by force of arms seems to_ have nullified an objection which is entirely in line with the current theory of nationalist economics. He points out also that vast areas of the world’s surface which 'have kept the peace, without even thinking of doing anything else, under certain political conditions, have suddenly become extremely warlike when the conditions have been changed. His leading ~ example is Spanish America, where peace between province and province was Unquestioned fop Centuries, but where now war is at any moment liable to break out between countries, which are embarrassed mainly by the difficulty of getting at one another. But he reinforces this example by reference to that of the 13 original United States, which might,_ if they bad not been afraid of Great Britain, have broken up into as many independent republics. They did institute tariff wars, and were not very far from physical warfare. They were persuaded to a mutual pacifism, like Tweedledum and Tweedlerlee, by the shadow of the crowd overhead. Spain threw no such shadow over her old colonies, and its absence cost some millions of lives, to say nothing of an immense wastage of material. A little space must be devoted to what ( Sir Norman Angell does not say. He does Not Mention One Very Powerful Reason for one Power wanting to grab territory from another Power —that that territory com tains resources very useful for waging, another war, He will reply, no doubt, that ■this is a natural but removable consequence of mutual suspicion. So it is—but it is a tiling which will always exacerbate what he regards as the real causes of modern wars, and It will exist as long as they do.. It is more important that he does not mention the enrichment of humanity which, 'though no one could have foreseen it, remains as one of the least often considered results of the Great War. The motives which led men to engage themselves in that struggle may have been delusory, the immediate results may have been deplorable, but the unintended by-products have in fact made a new world. The Great War was a fcrcing-house, and it brought about, in aviation, in wireless telegraphy, in labour-saving machinery, in the handling of metals, a leap forward in four years that might not, without the. pressure of that emergency, have been accomplished in fifty. Do.not let me be understood as saying that what the patient needs is another dose of (lie sanie medicine, (Though there is* something to be said for Mr-, Emil Davies' remedy for "economic "depression—that the. Powers should agree to have a jolly world war, without, however, all the nonsense ot’ letting off guns and killing people.) A slug of strychnine often does the Invalid good, , while another and a stronger might make an end of him. The

Impetus Given to Practical Science by the war is. not yet exhausted, nor will be for a very long time to come. But I think that it means a wrong view of history to assume that-the Great War was for anyone in the world all loss and no gain. The truth is that we gained too much in a very short time for us lo have assimilated it yet. What’ is certain is that we shall not assimilate it, without peace. This is where Sir Norman Angell. comes in. He is too wise , a man to think that he alone can change the mind of man within a generation. But lie has given Iwo or three generations an inocuiation which cannot fail of its effect. >®®®®®®®o®®®®®®®