Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 25 May 1916, Page 30

Notes

Charges Against the Military

Commenting elsewhere on the conduct of the military in relation to the Irish rebellion, we have said that reading between the lines of the cable messages it was tolerably clear that there have been cases of highhanded action on the part of the soldiery which require to be probed to the bottom. Later cables are more explicit, and make it unnecessary for us to read between the lines. A message in Monday’s paper says : ‘ Many accusations of brutality against the troops are current in Dublin, including the accusation that the soldiers killed unarmed and unoffending citizens.’ General Maxwell has published a reply, but this is obviously an official and therefore not strictly unbiassed statement for the defence, which will require to be confirmed or otherwise by judicial inquiry. Meanwhile every lover of justice will welcome this assurance from General Maxwell; J I have ordered the strictest inquiry to be made, and I will parade the battalions concerned to see if their accusers can identify the officers and men said to be responsible.’

Ruskin and War

In his delightful volume, Sesame, and Lilies , Ruskin has a passage on war which is particularly apposite at the present time: ‘ It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists’ wealth which supports unjust wars. Just wars do not need so much money to support them ; for most' of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men’s bodies and souls have both to be bought ; and the best tools of war for them besides, which makes such war costly to the maximum, not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion / between nations which have not grace nor honesty enough ■ in all their multitudes to buy an

hour’s peace of mind with as, at present France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions sterling worth of consternation, annually (a, remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and granaried by the “science” of the modern political economist; teaching covetousness instead of truth). And all unjust war being supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the . people, who appear to have no will in the matter, the capitalists’ will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness l of the whole nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each person.’

Substitute ‘Germany’ for ‘France,’ and multiply ‘ ten millions ’ by a very considerable figure, and you have a tolerably accurate picture of the state of things at the present time. The author says of this passage that it is ‘ one that will stand (if anything stand), surest and longest of all work of mine ’ —and history has already proved the truth of the great writer’s verdict.