The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1912. A NEW WAR GOSPEL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1440, 15 May 1912, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1912. A NEW WAR GOSPEL.

'Although no doubt our New Zealand anti-militarists do not know, yet intelligent "pacifists" in other countries are well aware that the bulk of thoughtful and normal men in every country do not believe that war is an unmitigated evil. Everyone who knows how to use his eyes and his brains knows that no free nation ever goes to war unbacked by the enthusiasm of the majority of all classes of the people. There is something worse for any nation than war, and that is peace at any price. Every student of history knows, and every normal man will quickly admit when he CQmes to think of it, that a just war is to a nation what righteous anger is to an individual; and the "pacifists" have never shaken the contention that throughout history tho liberty to wage war (which is a different thing, of course, from the itch to make war) has been essential to the health of nations and of the race. Even those, however, who, while encouraging tlie arbitration movement as a means towards securing that only vital and inevitable shall take place, yet do not believe in "peace at any price," will shrink from the new gospel of war expounded in a recent notable work by General Bernhardi. We gave some account last Wednesday, as a footnote to a cable message recording General Bernhardi's allegation that Britain is cherishing designs on Germany's position at Shantung, of the Gjncral's theory ol Germany's duty against Britain. What is most remarkable in his book {Germany and the Next War) is his bold advocacy of war as, not a reserve policy, but a prime policy, as a thing which it is the patriot's duty to bring about as soon and as often as he can. Since the General is a really influential writer—"probably," the Berlin correspondent of the London, Times says, "the most influential German writer on current strategical and tactical problems"—it is not surprising that his book has aroused much discussion in Britain.

His position is simple enough. He goes far beyond the argument that a war-sensa is necessary and that a freedom and willingness to war are necessary to the life of nations. He declares that the peace movement is "poisonous," that war is the only means by which Germany can fulfil her national life, and that "the duty of self-assertion is by no means exhausted in the mere repelling of hostile attacks": "it includes the need of securing to the whole people which the State embraces the possibility of existenco and development." Conquest is valueless, he appears to argue, unless it is conquest by the sword. The attempt to abolish war is "immoral and unworthy of humanity," being "an attempt to deprive man of his highest possession—the right to stake physical life for ideal ends." We need not discuss here his practical application of his doctrine to the present international situation. One can imagine what the English public would think of this bandit policy: it shocked that usually clear thinker, Lord Esher, into tremulous platitude. In a letter to the Times he threw himself not only against the Bernhardi gospel of war at any cost but against the reasonable, and in our opinion sound aud wholesome, gospel of "war if there is no other way out." Ib was ''hardly conceivable" to him that "after 2000 years of Christian teaching, and in the midst of a people from whom have, sprung sonic of (he loftiest, thinkers, ' etc., such opinions should find expression. If Germany endorsed Gbnr.juL Bursjuboi'b opinion*, be nlso said, Qormany "would well dosnrvu

to be excluded from the sphere in which those nations move who long to be free from barbaric influences and desire to advance towards a higher civilisation." As an indictment of the bandit spirit of General Be.rnh.U'.di's doctrine this is all very good, but Loud Esher has fired his* broadside of phrases—what are "barbaric influences" ? what exactly and precisely is "a higher civilisation" '!—at the whole idea of war. For he actually says that "civilised men" regard war as being "just as barbarous and futile" as "an appeal to fists or rapiers." This is just where the ease of tho anti-militarists falls clown. If he were logical—and the "pacifist" or tlio "anti-militarist" profess a monopoly of logic as well as a monopoly of humane spirit—the "peace at" all costs" man would practise the precept last quoted from Lord Esher. But even the average pacifist would on occasion knock a man down. Combatting the Anglo-American arbitration treaty Mr. Roosevelt asked whether a man whose wife were struck in his presence by another man would content himself with marching off to the nearest magistrate and laying an information. Nobody would. The "appeal to fists or rapiers" is not antiquated; nor is war; nor ever will be. At the back of all the anti-war agitation is the uneasy conviction that while men are men, with men's feelings and passions, nations will be nations. How otherwise could warships avoid being hooted off the waters? War ; s not the worst evil. It is an evil, but it can be the preventive of greater evils. In a very cautious article on the Bernhardi controversy the London Times pointed out that every nation has a soul, or, to quote its actual words, that "every nation worthy of the name has in it some ingrained conviction that it is 'chosen of the Lord' " : '

Patriotic literature in every language is full of that assumption, and patriotic poetry has no more potent method of appeal. Aβ individual peoples we beiievo in our distinctive institutions, our intellectual, and moral atmosphere, our social organisation, our general way of life, above all, in our own tongue. To believe in these is to desire in some measure that they may spread and prevail.

"Anti-militarism," as wo have it in New Zealand, like "anti-militarism" in other countries, believes in nothing. It lives in darkness. It denies the existence of the springs of human continuance. In its blindness to order and national honour it is more akin to the Bernhardi creed than the simple ereed which says, Let war be avoided as a great evil, but let there be war if it is the only way.