WORSE THINGS THAN WAR

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2262, 23 September 1914, Page 6

WORSE THINGS THAN WAR

r • ( A BISHOP'S: PROTEST. , At an Anglican Synod last week, Dr. . ■ Long, Bishop of' Bathurst, made refer- . ence to the war. _• : . ,- . r . "I-believe," he;'said,.'"there are many ..things worse than-war, and that in cer- . tain'"circumstances peace itself might be , .worse than war. I'think that slavery ; aud.cowardico are worse than war. Let us by all moans hate war, but let us hate dishonour and unrighteousness '~'. even, worse tluii.- war. ' •- . -"I was told of oue member of this synod who says that it-is all nonsense I to fight at all—that we might just as •svcll be rilled by the Kaiser as by the King, and that this, would bo much -better than making a lot of German widows. I. beliovo that I am a very ■;■ peaceful person myself, but I have a hatred of .more sentimentality, and a love for clear thinking.. Some of tho kind of persons referred to hold up their hands in horror about, war. Well, so do wo all. We hate and abhor'the cruel insanity of-it all. At the same time, there are many, who are serfs of an enimagination who shudder at war becaluse it brings suffering before them in a way they cannot realise. What is the use of saying to those people, even on the lines of commonsenso ,that there '". is'at least as_ great a wastage of life going : on 'continuously in days of peace in the overcrowded and sweated towns ■ of the Old World?;- If you were to tell them that the average life of female factory workers in Belfast has dropped to 38 years, that infant mortality in Bolton. had' gone up 10 per cent., that • the death-rate of Stepney has.risen.6} per cent., that 17 per cent, of thepopufation of South London is living below tho- poverty' line,' 'their 'answer would probably be.:._'ls,,that.,Kalry. so?' But it would not shako or a.ppal their imagination because -their'imagination is too enfeebled'to'-re'alise what the suffering means. These.,things-we put up with from day to-day," and still manage to ' enjoy the cream on our morning porridgeVbufwhen'war comes, .we are_prepared to r shriek,at ohce, almost to faint at tfhe sight of blood,; as if life itself . was the one and) only-good, and tho one horror the world 'had "For myself, 'if I were a .. sweated,, twoed-capped, undersized factory hand in Manchester, .1 would bo glad of one hour of glorious life on the fields of France, even if if meant that I bad to die of-a. German hullct. a-few years before I died'of.cons'umption-m-some garret of the slums.' l