RUN OF CIVILSATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 11

RUN OF CIVILSATION

a WRITER S FEARS WAR TALK and mistrust dismal prophecies cable.— Press Association—(Jopyright. LONDON, Thursday. Some remarkably outspoken passs are contained in a book called "Will Civilisation Crash?” written by commander J. M. Kenworthy, Labour «p for Kingston-upon-Hull. The 1 or ic was published to-day. One of the passages referred to g. “it is awful to think of an inglo-Japanese alliance against America but one must think about it. If •fte'r 19 31 there should not be a renewal of the Washington Treaty the world will accept the possibility of a war between Britain and America.” The author also writes: “A feeling of hostility, mistrust, fear and jealousy between Britain and America is latent. It i s only consciously felt by a minority in each country, but, given an appropriate atmosphere, a year’s naval rivalry and war debt bickerings, that hostility will actively spread in spite of the common sense of the masses in each country. half the world at war

“If the British Empire were fighting with her back to the wall she would welcome allies anywhere in the world, racial prejudice notwithstanding.

“Britain and Japan together could inflict defeat on the American Navy, occupy the Canal zone, blockade the American coasts, and hold up commerce. “Should Canada be willing, Britain and Japan could laud large armies on Canadian soil and invade the United States. The war would spread to half the world. It would end civilisation and ruin human culture. “New York, Baltimore, Boston. Portland and Atlantic City would be shelled from the sea by submarines Stted with poison-gas cylinders. No sooner would Britain hear of the suffocation of 30,000 people on Manhattan Island than American submarines would visit Liverpool on a similar mission. “There must be a treaty between Britain and America outlawing war. These two nations, together with Holland and Switzerland, could control the finance of the world, also the essential material without which war could not be waged.” SENSELESS MANKIND

The well-known novelist, Mr. H. G. Wells, in a striking introduction to the book, confesses that he was taken by surprise when the Great War broke out. He proceeds: “Then after four years of stupid elums y and inconclusive massacre and destruction, I clung to the delusion that the common sense of mankind would prevail.

‘•Now I say definitely that I will never again make the mistake of attributing common sense to mankind.

“If a war comes in the next 20 years jeople will be slaughtered in horriWe wavs They will be suffocated, torn to ribbons, sent crying for help with frightful mortal mutilations, burned, slashed and left to die under collapsed buildings.”—A. and N.Z.