THE OUTLOOK.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 194, 2 September 1937, Page 4

THE OUTLOOK.

I view with revulsion, writes Mr J. M. Keynes in the New Statesman, the growing tendency to make of the struggle between the two ideologies (or would it be conceded that there are threef) another War of Religion, to believe that the issue can or will be settled by force of arms, and to feel that it is our duty to liusten tq any quarter of the world where those of our faith are oppressed. It is only too easy for men to feel like this. The Crusades and the Thirty Years' War actually occurred. But does it seem, looking back, that it was a duty to join in them, or that they settled anything? Assume that the war oceurs, aud lefc us suppose, for the sake of argument, that we win. What then? Shall we ourselves be the better for it and for what it will have brought with it? What are we going to do with the defeated? Are we to impose our favourite ideology on them (whatever, by then, it may be) in an up-to-date Peace Treaty, or do we assume that they will adopt it with sppntaneous enthusiasm? At best we should be back, it seems to me, ex* actly where we were. Defeat is complete disaster. "Victory, as usual, would be useless, and probably pernicious. It is an illusion to belipve that copscious acceptance of guilt in the neeessary murder can settle what is mainly a moral issue.