THE ABJECT PACIFIST
PEACE AT ANY PRICE
"FREAKS OF DISTRESSED THINKING"
.imong tho minor topic? that people » . l; ,', ikll, R about behind tho Western obotyy «f Ihe yielding pacifists and tie conscientious objetfon. Of conirco we are ail pacifists nowadays; we want not only to end this war, but to put an end o war altogether. . . . But. most of the peoplo 1 meet are pacifist.? like mveeJf, who n-a.nl to make peace by beatnig the armed man until he gives in and udniiU the error of bis wars, disarming him and reorganising the world for the forcible suppression of military adventurers in the futnra. They want belligerency put in the same" category as burglary, as a matter for forcible 'suppression. J hetyieiding pacifist, who will accept any rort of pence, and the conscientious objector, who will not light are not of that opinion. "I cannot, regard tnese conscientious objector* with anything but contempt. Into my house there pours a dismal literature rehearsing the hardships of these men who set iip to be martyrs for liberty. So-and-so, brava hero, hat* been sworn at—positively sworn at by a corporal; a nasty rough man came'into the cell of So-nnd-so and dropped several h's; So-amko, refusing to undress and wash, lias been undressed and washed, and soap was rubbed into his eyes—perhaps purposely; the food and accommo. dation- are not of the best rlaas; the doctors in attendance seem hasty; So-and-so was put into a damp bed and has got a. nasty cold. Then I- recall a jolly vanioad of wounded men I saw out there. I have seen the hardships of the trenches I do understand a little what our so! diers, officers, and men have endured and done.
"Among these titop-the-war people thorn is a type of person who hates violence aral (ho infliction of pain under any circniastaiiws, and who has a mystical belief in the Tightness—and usually in the efficacy—of non-rfsistence. These are genuvaiiy Christians, arid then their cardinal text is the instruction to 'turn the other cheek.' Often they are Quakers. If they .are consistent they are vegetarians. They do not d&sire police protection for their goods. They stand aloof from all the force and conflict of life. They have , always done so. This is an understandable and respectable type. It has mimernii? Hindu equivalents. It is a type that finds little difficulty about exemplions—provided the individual has not l.'eeil too recently converted to his present habits. But it is not' the prevalent type in stop-the-war circles. Such genuine ascetics do not number more than n, thousand or eo in all three of our Western Allied countries. f lhe mass of the stop-the-war people is made up of quite other elements. ... .. "It was, of course, natural and inevitable that the German tnslaught upon Belgium and civilisation generally Should strike these people iot ae a monstrous ugly wickedness, io be resisted and overcome at any cost, but merely as- it nerve-racking experience. Guns were sroincr oft' on both tides. The 'genteel Whig' was chiefly conscious of a repulsive vast excitement about uim, in which many people did inelegant and irrational things. . . .He could do no more than stick hia fingers in his ears and eay: 'Oh, 'please! do all stop! . The efforts to stop the conflict at any price, even at tho price of entire submission to the G,ermnn Will, grew more urgent ae the necessity that everyone should help against the German Thing grew more manifest. The Freakish Whig.
"Of all the strange freaks of distressed thinking this war has produced, tno freaks of tine genteel Whig have been among tho most remarkable. With an air of profound wisdom he returns perpetually to his proposition that there are faults on both sides; to say that ie his conception of .impartiality. 1 euppose that if a bull gored hie sister he would eay there wore faults on both sides—his sister ought not to have strayed into the field; bhe wae wearing a red hat of a Jiighly provocative typo; nnd eo on. In the face of the history of the last forty years tho genteel Wliig struggiea persistently to minimise the German outrage upon civilisation and to find excuses ior Germany. He does this no* because he has uny. real passion for falsehood, but because, by training, circumstance' and disposition, he is passionately averse from action with the vulgar majority and from eelf-eacrifice in a common cause; and because he finds in the justification- of Germany and, failing that, in the blackening*of the Allies to an equal blackness one line of defence against tho wave of service that threatens to submerge his private self. But when at last thut line is forced he is driven back upon others equally extraordinary.
"You. can often find simultaneously in tho same pacifist paper, and sometimes even in the utterances of the eaine writer,, two entirely incompatible statements: The first is that Germany is so invincible that it is useless (x> prolong the war, since no effort of the is likely to produce any material improvement in their position; and the second is, Germany is eo thoroughly, beatenthat etie is now ready to abandon militarism and make terme and compensations entirely acceptable to the countries she hoe forced info war. And when finally facts are produced to establish tho truth that Germany, though etill largely wicked and impenitent, is being slowly and conclusively beaten by the sanity, courage and persistence, of allied ooDinion men, then the genteel Whig retarte with his last defensive absurdity: Ho, inveufs a national psychology for Germany.
"Germany, he invents, loves us and wants to be our dearest friend. Germany ihae always loved us. The Germans are a loving, unenvious people. But boware of beating Germnny, beware of.humiliating' Germany; then, indeed, trouble will come. Germany will begin to dislike us. She will plan a revenge. Turning asido from her erstwhile- innocent careor, she may even think of hate. What are our obligations to Prance, Italy, Serbia and Russia? What is the happiness of a few millions of Belgians —whose numbers, moreover, are constantly diminishing— when we weigh them against the danger of incurring permanent German hostility?"
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Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 203, 16 May 1918, Page 8
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1,026THE ABJECT PACIFIST Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 203, 16 May 1918, Page 8
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