THE NEW VIEW OF WAR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5354, 21 November 1928, Page 4

THE NEW VIEW OF WAR.

PAST BLUNDERING. “I suggest to the young men that they should dr, op generalisations, and apply themselves seriously to tlhe causes of war,” says Mr J. A. Spender, in the London “Daily News. ’ “They are convinced that the ‘old men’ blundered, whether frexm malic.e or ignorance. Let them show us where the old men themselves would have behaved if they had been governing the country. Suppose, in fact, bne of ■ our yejung men in charge, of British policy in the first 14 years of the present century. What would hq have done when the Germans began to build a big fleet and, in spite of all warnings and efforts for a mutual cessation of building, persisted to, a point which evidently threatened his country, if she remained isolated and without friends in either of the European Alliances ? Would lie have said that militarism was .such an evil thing that he would take nq part in a naval competition and) seek no friends to support him in case he w,as attacked either by a superior enemy or by a combination which he was unable to resist ?. Would he have remained a, passive spectator, while Germany crushed France, made herself master of Europe, with possession of the Channel ports, a.nd (probably) added the fleets of the conquered nations to her own fleet ? Is he quitjq sure that if he Iliad pursued this policy the young men of the present day would thank him ?”