PEACE AND WAR

New Zealand Tablet, 22 July 1909, Page 1135

PEACE AND WAR

(From our Cliristcliurcli correspondent.) July 19. His Lordship Bishop Grimes was among the selected speakers at a mass meeting, held on last Wednesday evening, and promoted by the Canterbury branch of the recently formed National Defence League. On the subject of ' Peace and War,' his Lordship spoke as follows: — It would be impossible to exaggerate the blessing of Peace, God's grandest gift to His creatures. At the dawn of Christianity the heavens rang forth, ' Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will!' Wherever this glorious message is welcomed, wherever religion reigns, there reigns Peace — peace among men, peace among nations. Even the Pagans declare through their poet that ' the best of things which it is given to men to know is peace; better than a thousand triumphs :s the simple gift of peace.' The prophet of old pronounced the world happy only ' where nation should not uplift the sword against nation, nor be exercised any more in war, where swords, should be turned into ploughshares and spears into sickles' (Isa. ii. v.). Our own poet (Thomson, Britannia) thus beautifully apostrophises this great gift:

' O, first of human blessings and supreme ! Fair Peace, how lovely, how delightful thou ! O Peace, thou soul and source of social life! Beneath whose calm, inspiring influence, Science his views enlarges, art refines; And swelling commerce opens all her ports! Blessed be the Man Divine Who gave us thee!'

The loftiest panegyric of Peace is that men proclaim its establishment to be the sole justification of war. To enforce the reign of peace is, in the sight of God and men, the only valid reason for war. For war is always an awful calamity. Even when forced upon a people or nation, it is a curse we should strain every nerve to avert. Those who have witnessed the horrors of war dread it most. ' Take my word for it,' says the Duke of Wellington, ' ]f you had but seen one day of war, you would pray to Almighty God that you might never see such a thing again I' Even the war-like Napoleon declared that 'the Bight of the battlefield after the fight is enough to inspire princes with a love of peace and a horror of war.' Stripped of its pomp and parade, of its glittering show, of its tinsel, war is always a cruel, brutal slayer of men. Fellow human beings meeting amid the shock of battle, their brain :n-flamed:n-flamed with rage, shot and shell rending the air, high and low, young and old reeling and falling like leaves in an autumnal storm, their bodies bleeding and dying and mangled and torn in shreds! This is actual war! Countless homes plunged into agonising grief; wives and mothers and children mourning the loss of husband, or father, or

brother, or son, who fell beneath the foeman's steel nr perished in the foyer-stricken tent, or who, surviving battle or disease, bring back to their loving ones maimed or shattered or worn-out frames. This is the bitter fruit of war ! Would to God that war, with all its horrors, were only the sad echoings of a barbarous past, never again to be known upon earth! Would that the world knew none but men of good will! Then the reign of peace would be universal. Until that blissful day dawns, circumstances will arise imposing upon nations conditions even more to be dreaded than war. When the life of a nation is at stake, when its honor is assailed, when the integrity of its territory is so menaced as to threaten the hearths and homes of it's people, or when some grievous wrong is done, defying argument or diplomacy, what other resource is left to that nation not base enough to court death or dishonor but to unsheathe the sword and do battle for truth, and justice, and peace? War is not, then, the repudiating of peace. It becomes the sole, but necessary, means of maintaining or regaining peace. Though ever to be deprecated, occasions like these will arise when war has the sanction of reason and religion and humanity itself. I fearlessly assert that in these and similar cases, when war is and just, it is a holy war, and priest and prelate, sworn as they are to preach peace and good will to all mankind, may and should invoke the blessings of the God of armies upon such a just war. The men who then obey their country's call to arms become heroes; the sword that country then unsheathes is the token of brave sacrifice; the flag unfurled is the emblem of true patriotism ; and the shroud that grateful country spreads over its dear dead is the imperishable mantle of glory. Craven and cowardly the country and the people of that country if in such a critical juncture they lack the courage of a just war, no less than of a just peace; craven cowards are the sons unwilling- to servo their country alike in peace and in war. "We are lovers of peace. We praise and preach and proclaim peace; and !t is for this very reason that we cordially approve of the resolution put from the chair to-night. It is for this very reason that we are lovers of peace, that we cordially approved of the action of the Premier and his Cabinet, considering it one of the most effectual means to maintain, uphold, and defend peace. But then it is alleged 'it was an unconstitutional act.' I hold no brief for the Prime Minister, but I take it that when he and most of us were led to believe that a grave crisis had arisen in the country whence we look for help and protection; when ts peace^ and consequently ours, was threatened, he thought he was voicing the patriotism of the bulk of the Dominion by making a spontaneous offer to sacrifice money rather than men. What true patriot would blame him for this? [t was not alone a question of patriotism. It was one of sound too. Whilst upholding the honor of the Mother Country, he was furthering the interests commercial, industrial, and social of the Dominion. What grander advertisement has our Dominion ever received? Let me, in conclusion, recall to your minds two grave unconstitutional acts with far-reaching effects on the whole of the British Empire — acts performed by men justly regarded »s among our greatest national heroes. One of our bravest and boldest of naval commanders was Lord Nelson, whose patriotic words, ' England expects every man to do his duty,' have become historical, and are well worthy to be the motto of the National Defence League of New Zealand, under whose auspices we are gathered here to-night, finding himself face to face with a grave crisis, instead of doing a constitutional thing which he knew would spell disaster for the fleet and the nation, he performed a most unconstitutional act. Placing his telescope to his blind eye, he saved the situation and averted a fearful disaster. The second fact carries us back to the memorable 15th June, 1215. The British nation was face to face with one tf the gravest crises in its history. The privileges of Church and State were ignored ; the rights and very liberty of th-3 people trampled under foot by the tyrant King John. Barons and bishops — with a patriotic Catholic Archbishop at their head — met together at Runnymead, and wrested from the king a Charter which, though obtained by a most unconstitutional act, is to this very day not only the bulwark, but the very foundation, of our Constitution-^— the foundation of the laws and liberty which are the boast ».f Britishers throughout the length and breadth of the globe. For these and other reasons given by the speakers whb have preceded and those who will follow me, I have the greatest pleasure in supporting the resolution so ably put from the chair.