WAR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5209, 1 December 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAR.

(From Truth.) War, according to the old Roman maxim, renders profane everything sacred belonging to an enemy. When the ancient cm.qu-rors of 111 e world sold off into si,very the citizens of some town or province that '.hey bad vanquished. they felt that they were eminently humane, as they had acquired the right to slay the r prisoners.. One cin easily im igine the in ignant protests of those inodds of ancient chivalry, the mailed knights, who, with comparative salety to themselves, rode down imperfeclly armed foot soldiers, when the invention of gunpowder equalised the risk incurred hy long-descended knights and base-born serfs. Him- angrily must they have denounced the : sacrilegious discovery! How they must have sigheil'for the good old days, when they were able to cut and hew their fellow men with impunity to their own carcases ! This spirit of inakino war an agreeable amusement, rather than a serious business, still survives. Whenever its dangers are increased, there is a protest raised in the name of humanity. For our part, we regard war, not only as an unmitigated curse, but as the most foolish manner in which the treasures of a nation and tho lives of its citiz -ns can be expended, and our only ho ,p, that Eu ’ope will not continue to he periodically d laged in blood, lie- in the thought, that wars will eventua ly become such butcheries that mankind will, in dread of their terrib e results, hesitate to engage in them. At the commencement of the Crimean war, Professor Jacdii invented torpedoes. He was denounced as an enemy of the human race, and it was suggesled that torpedoes should be excluded from the weapons of war p-nnitted by the code of modern civilisation. Common sense, however, prevailed, and torpedo boats are now a recognised portion of a fleet. Another intelligent gentleman invented explosive bullets. He was nob, however, so fortunate as Professor Jacobi, for, hy an international understanding, explosive bullets have been tabooed. (Jan anything he more absurd than this ? Why are wells not to be poisoned ? Why are defenceless towns not to be bombarded ? Why are provinces, which are at the merev of a foreign army, not to be desolated ? Why are all their inhabitants not to be driven off into slavery ? We ask these questions in the interests of peace. So long as nations are practically to suffer nothing, in case they are vanquished, and are to carry on wars hy means of a class specially affected to hostilities, Imt whose risks are limited by treaties, wars will he plentiful. To increase the hqrr..rs and the terrors of war, aud to involve io them men, women, aud children, would, we are convinced, bo the surest means to force nations to live in peace and amity with each other. We ourselves, who have a very slight knowledge of chemistry, would engage to deal with an army, Turkish or Russian, so effectively, ihat, like the best of Sennacherib, it would awake dead men. The means to effect this must be known to both Turkish ami !•’ussiau’chemists, as well as to ourselves. If the pomp ami pride of glorious war were reduced to marching on to a battle-field, aud the e, without deploying, or charging, or manoeuvring, simp'y dying like wasps smoked out in a nest, is it prob dile that Turks and Russians would risk such a fate ?

Why should a soldier be legitimately rim through the bo iy with a bayonet, and the peaceful citizen, who has hired that soldier to light for him, be let off scot free ? All these distinctions are radically false. If the T-irks had trained up a corps of secret agents, skilled i-i the arts of po ; sming, and had announced that, should war be declared against them by Russia, these agents w uld he distributed over the dominions of the Czar, with the mission to deal with Ids Majesty, his Majesty’s mi inters, courtiers, diplomatic agents, and generals, the Russians would have meditated so long before engaging in war, that peace would never, probably, have been broken. Between, as a measure of defence, introducing a bullet into the stomach of a Russian soldier, and introducing prussic acid into the stomach of Prince Gortschakotf, we see no difference. The one is precisely as justifiable as the other ; indeed, as Prince Gortschakolf is far more responsible for the war than the soldier, it would be more just that he, rather th in the soldier, should be exposed to its ri ks. We do n it entertain a doubt that both Lord Beaconsfiel I and Sir Stafford Xorthcote would cheerful y die in defence of their country, were this necessary; but if these two Ministers knew, that the effect of Ragland declaring wax ag dost any foreign nati *n, would be, tint, in-tead of their going comfortably down to the House of Column is to impose a few additional taxes, it might he that they would feel a knawing pain in their entrails, to be followed by speedy death, tln-y would think twice, and even thrice, before involving us in hostilities. We are convinced that, in restricting the operations of war, we are increasing the probabilities of its periodically breaking out. If it were rendered terrible to all, and more particularly to those who have the destinies of nations in their hands, one step, at least, towards the Millenium would be taken. Similia simiVhus cuntiUur. Strip “glorious war” of all its pomp'and pride, bring home its dangers to all the inhabitants of a nation tint howls for it, to the ministers that advocate it, and to the rmnarchs that decla e it, and an era of peace would soon succee I the era of throat-cutting, bombarding, and scientific murder on a gigantic scale, in which our lot seems to have been cast.