Fighting For Justice

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 154, 25 March 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

Fighting For Justice

“There is one doctrine of many Christian theologians which will sound most unheroic to many people. It is that it is wrong to engage even in a just war unless you are reasonably sure that you will win. “Yet the reason for this is plain. For the one justification for war, if there is any justification, is that in the circumstances it is the only way open to prevent still greater evil and the triumpli of injustice.

“We should be incurring two evils instead of one. We should bring upon ourselves the terrible calamity and degradation of war without any reasonable prospect of averting injustice. It is not only imprudent, it is. morally wrong, to engage in war in which you have not a reasonable prospect of winning.

“Lt could certainly be argued that the consequences of a world war would be devastating in its loss of life, the destruction of culture and moral standards, and of all the things that make life worth living, and justice would certainly perish. “It could certainly be argued that able consequence of a war would be an increase of injustice rather than suppression, and to degrade permanently even those nations who fought for justice, then the possible cause of war is ended. For it would surely be an absurd paradox to say that that war could be just which had as a result an increased amount of injustice in the

world.” —Dr. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul’s, London.