DISARMAMENT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 253, 21 July 1919, Page 10

DISARMAMENT

Sir,—Will you permit me to thank you for your leading article in Wednesdays ibsue of The Dominion? The situation developing in this country, and, as far <is one can judge, in most of the Allied lands, is such as to occasion gravo anxiety to every lover of hie country and his kind. The hopes wo were bidden entertain during tie war that it would prove the last war, at least between civilised nations, are swiftly vanishing. Come and fight, was the fry, light to put an end to fighting—Bomo and help to destroy tho militarism of Germany, for she alone is practically responsible for tho militarism of all other nations. Yonr leader implicitly, if not illicitly, too, acknowledges this, and you do well to toll your readers that disarmament must at l : east "be begun soon. You ars surely also right in deprecating the proposal to lake youths' of eighteen and subject them to camp life for a period of four months in one year. Only on one year, we are teld to-day j tomorrow we will Mkely enough be asked to consent to this for Uvo jeara, perhap9 more. And conscription v-ill come in upon us like a flood. I heartily agrco with your criticisms cf tho probable influence of camp life on cur youths, but what .weighs even more with me- is that by this extension and intensification of the Territorial system, we shall help to keep militarism in tho saddle, and beget in the minds of our citizens tho evil notion that armaments are indispensable and war inevitable. Lot this conviction seize upou the mind of the nations and war will indeed, prove inevitable. Is there any connection in which Shakespeare's paying is more true than it is true of preparations for war: "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds innkes ill deeds done"? The League of Nations may piwe a merely humanitarian dream—lt may do so, in spite' of the most earnest efforts on the part of the nations to make it a reality—but it is very clear that if we geout the League of Nations, fs Mr. Mas-' Eey is reported to have done in your issue of to-day—if wo do not by cisarniament to the utmost degree compatible with the general safety, strive to give reality to the League, it will assuredly prove only a dream. , And then God help us! H. Q. Wells, whose predictions have an almost uncanny way of reaching fulfilment, in his book "War and the future," has told us what the next war will be if a next wtri" there must lie. Suffice it to say we hav.e not yet seen Arnwgeddon; but we will 6ee it. . Mere prudence, apart from "ethical considerations, ought to inspire us to do our very 'best to get rid of militarism. Are wo not face to face with forces working for the disruption of human,society P The situation is bad enough in Mew Zealand, with its train service hhnost at a standl- - and its citizens shivering for look of coal, but New Zealand is a paradise compared with many countries at the present moment. Jtatain militarism, do nothing to secure disarmament, and you will play into the hands rif those who caro not liow soon the social order goas over Niagara. This will follow just as surely as the night follows the clay, In common with very many of your readers, ■ I trust you will return to tho thomn of tho leader which has elicited this letter, and strengthen your contention that a beginning must now be niado of disarmament.—l am, etc.,