The Daily News TUESDAY, JANUARY 2. WILL IT COME OFF?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8017, 2 January 1906, Page 2

The Daily News TUESDAY, JANUARY 2. WILL IT COME OFF?

One of the strongest instincts of male | human nature is the physical instinct to " hit back." A healthy man is a fighter. It he won't put up his hands when smitten, there is probably a physical reason for what the world calls cowardice. The schoolboy is never happier than when he is boasting of his fighting prowess and the schoolboy is the real man in miniature. Grown-ups in civilised communities don't resort, to the fistic argument or weapons, except in rare cases, but the same grown-ups, transplanted from the peacefulness of an ordered community to the battlefield, although they may never have struck a blow before, awake to the fact that to fight is as inherent in the latterday constitution as it was in the days of the Cicsars. Maybe it isn't right, to give way to this instinct, but it is instinct nuve-'thelr -'s.

To-day a man who is a kind father, a loving husband, or a peaceful citizen, is honourel for his kindly qualities. To-morrow lie is on the field of battle trying to compass the death of men who, personally, never did him any harm, by ghastly implements of war. To-day the Czar is placing before the nations a scheme for univeiv .1 peace. To-morrow his eour.try is in death-grip with the •Japanese, and the Man of Peace is the Man of Blood. To-day we express sorrow at the death of a citizen from accident; to-morrow we read without a qualm 'that British trcsps have slain so many hundreds of the enemy. We hang a man for taking a life at homo. Weacckihu h ;, n and give him medals for taking scores of them " when the Empire calls." * * * o $ Tiib iustinct, that impels us to slay under the laws of war is the instinct that prompts us to fight on the footfcl field; tabea little batter than fellow ;" to beat him at

be shown—an instinct which is born in male animals, hitman or other- ( wise. No man knows whether he is e " brave " until he is tested, and the f man who wins fighting honours is al- ' most invariably the man one did not suspect of latent heroism. Campbell- ' Bannerman, the new British Pre- j mier, if his recently cable J sper.'.hes s are a criterion, is starting out where '■ the Czar commence! He wants ' peace. He favours arbitration in 1 place of war, and an " adjustment of ' armaments." The world is full of wars and always has been. Whether , the Utopian idea of an unarmed peace i will ever be realised is difficult to 1 say; and whether men will ever give , up slaying each other, at the instigation of stay-at-home Governments, is airily problematical. # * # # Britain owes her might, her wealth, and her Empire to the sword. It is only by that might that she is not scattered as an Empire. The only arbitration with which we have convinced other nations that they are wrong and we are right is by the " stern arbitrament of war," and it is our chief pride that we are invincible as man killers. But CampbellBannerman's ideal is » non-fighting Britain which shall set a beautiful example to' all those nations anxious ' for our blood, to curb the strongest i passion of human nature, and to " turn our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks." To make old iron of the navies of ' the world, and to form a scrap heap of the earth's engines of war is a • dream that is charming. To releaso into peaceful industry countless mil-' „ lions of men trained solely for uian- ' slaying would, one might think, her- ; aid an era of international bliss. * # * * By process of evolution we might become a creature in whom the fightt ing instinct did not exist, as he has become (vide Darwin) a creature, without a tail. Wo love the man who " clowns" the bully, the mai) who is slow to wrath, but who hits I hard when he is stirred. We might seriously hope, should Britain throw down her arms and other nations follow suit, that internal man-to-man peace would be established, that it would become a criminal offence to kill an enemy of one's country ns it ' is to kill one's countrjaian, The man who risked his life to kill others wouldn't get a V.C.; lie would get the hangman. In fact, if the ideals of Campbell-Bannerman are to be realised the whole trend of human nai ture lias to change. And human na-' ture, according to our highest ethics, P would stand a lot of changing, alr though at the moment we fight because we have been built that way, and we are not responsible for the building. * * * * Fiainiso and religion are twin broth- ) ers. We British have always prided ourselves on our religious principles, and the hearty way we have taught " the Gospel to the remnant of the people we have conquered. It was f Joan of Arc's religion that prompted her to lead her countrymen to the killing, and it was the religious prin- ■ ciples of the British that prompted them to burn her as a " witch." The Boers were highly devotional, and ' that Christian country, Russia, went into battle with prayers and ikons. ' In fact, it is hard to die'issc date religion from lighting, or vice versa ; ' and, as we have always deemed it 1 exceedingly right and proper that we should wipe out anybody who disagreed with us, it that Cainp- . bell-Bannerman must n: ;essarily be irreligious. 0 * .# * " C.8." is not a soldier's man, but he has the exact qualifications that go i to make the real soldier man. He didn't back down over the war, and he hasn't put up the white Hag over the Chinese business. Also, he is probably the same sort of peace propagandist as Roosevelt, who couldn't be held when there was Spanish slaying to be done, but who could tell Japan and Russia to be good boys and quit throttling one another. Who does not wish for wars to cease, and who does not wish for a place in the ranks when war begins ?