Why Forget?

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 16, 12 October 1937, Page 3

Why Forget?

AGUR.

Sir, — An expression used in tn^ writ•r's previous letter on the above question appears to have been open to miseonstruction — whero it was stated that no saerifice to prevent war would seem too great if it could be made with honour. The saerifice the writer had in mind, and should have more clearly explained, is that which is necessarily mvolved in universnl and compulsory military training — i.e., the youths' saerifice of some of their leisure hours and their amusements1, and the taxpayers' saerifice of income to pay and equip them. All competent observers are satisfied that these sacrifices are absolutely necessary if the horrors of another war are to be avoided. Only purblind pacifists and such-like cranks imagine that such preparation for our own protection could lead to war. It is a common occurrence for a magistrate to order a dangerous dog to be destroyed or kept tied up. Germany is that dangerous dog to us, and also Italy and Japan. We cannot destroy these", but by having compulsory military training

and .being well armed we can metaphorically keep them tied up and safely in their kennels, There is ino other .way of doing so, To quote the words of the American Ambassador, Mr Page, "We mustn't longer spin dreams about peace, nor leagues to enforce peace. These things are mere intellectual diversions of minds out of contact with realities." It was the tragedy of both England and America that in 1914 they each had a lawyer at the head of affairs — "out of contact with realities." Wilson, "not a leader but rather a stubborn phrasemaker, " Asquith not much better; and both full of legal hairsplitting equivocations for shirking their duty till force of pnblic opinion at length compelled them to quit quibbling and aet like mdn. When one remembers Asquith 's refusal to consider military training for able-bodied young men before the war, and his hesitation over conscrfption when the war started, and Wilson's worso'-than-tragic delay of nearly two years in deelaring war after the sinking of the Lusitania, one could (wish there wero another petition added to the Litany: "From lawyer, s in high piaces, Good Lord, deliver us." — Yours, etc., i

W aipawa, Oct. 11, 1937. •