DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 229, 16 December 1927, Page 5

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

THE NEXT WAR (Copyright, 1927.) rpHE KAISER, who is banished from his own country and living in Holland, 1 declared recently that we are headed for another war within ten years. Under cover of hypocritical talk of disarmament, nations are heavily arming themselves and international jealousies are increasing. So that the next war is bound to come and it will be terrible and probably short. In a few days a nation will be extinguished by the increased powers of destruction that are now being prepared. The only way to avoid this, according to the Kaiser, is preparedness. That is to say, the only way to escape it is to increase armaments and get ready for the conflict. Disaster is mostly psychological. It is like a man learning to ride a bicycle. He sees a telegraph post and through watching it and fear of it he invariably runs into it. The best plan to avoid obstructive telegraph posts is to ignore them and think of something else. Such talk as the Kaiser’s is the kind of talk that makes war. The only hope, at present, is that the nations are discussing peace and universal peace seems to be a desideratum on all sides. The increase in business also is a security against war, for business is beginning to realise that war destroys more money than men, bankrupts countries, increases income taxes and otherwise burdens the productive power of a nation. Every time that a newspaper or a speaker of prominence dwells upon some plan to insure peace, peace is that much more secure, and every time our attention is drawn and our thoughts are attracted to a coming war, that war is by so much the more certain. The best way to avoid war is to quit thinking about it, quit talking about it and quit preparing for it. Not that we should live in a fool’s paradise, but that we should at least begin the long lesson of trusting one another. War is born of distrust, ignorance and hate. We must root out these weeds from our minds or they will speedily cover the place and bring an inevitable crop of war and disaster.