MORAL LAW AGAINST WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 103, 28 October 1933, Page 7

MORAL LAW AGAINST WAR

(To the Editor.) ' Sir, —The world is under moral government, where law, not sentiment, is the deciding factor; therefore, if wewaat to do away with war the first and most important thing to do is to inculcate such respect for the laws and principles on which the world is governed that no one will dare to break them. War is an expression of the predatory instinct, which again forms part of the instinct of self-preservation. What form of life could survive but for this instinct? But man is under moral government, the moral law for him is designed to keep the exercise of his instincts within proper bounds. Hence, war only becomes inevitablo when the moral law is broken, and then what follows both for victor and vanquished is the misery, poverty, and general distress that invariably follows bohind the chariots of war. Why? Because in war there is not only a breach of the law, "Thou shalt not kill," but there is another law which says, "Thou shalt not steal"; and the stealing by tampering with the currency goes on not only during, but long after the victory is won. Is it not just this tampering'with the currency that is now responsible for the destruction of credit, confidence, and the loss of trade? In the face of the events of the last twenty years, can any intelligent and enlightened person deny^that the economic effects of the Spanish War of Succession, the Napoleonic, and now again of the World War have been very much alike? Can fro reasonably expect that another war will not be more disastrous to tho economic life and prosperity of tho nations, till at last trade and production will almost cease. Is that tho economic condition that will at last induce the nations to turn their swords and spears into pruning forks and ploughshares? What hope is there for peace while tho laws by which the Creator rules the world arc so persistently ignored as they have been in the past? —I am, etc., HANS C. THOMSEX.