The Daily News. FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1911. "TORN FROM THEIR MOTHERS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 305, 19 May 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1911. "TORN FROM THEIR MOTHERS."

When peace comes those who protest at war will have nothing to fight about. If tlii! white dove was to get astray in the Socialist camp she would be stoned. There are at the moment better chances for cessation of war between civilised 1 nations than ever before, but the fact that the nations, both hoary and infantile, strengthen themselves to make peace possible incites alleged peacemongers to light like snakes. From a public place the other day a public man spoke feelingly about the virtue of "turning the other cheek also," but he forgot to say that the advice was given to the person who might be smitten. "A strong man armed keepeth his castle." The fact that he is strong and armed is insurance against attack. He is armed so that the peace may be kept. The public man in a public place further emphasised his belief that the nation having the courage to disarm would be so respected by armed nations that she would not be attacked. It is a comforting philosophy, showing that not every public man understands human nature. Many disarmament remarks being at present made in New Zealand have been inspired by the new system of compulsory military training, and they are by way of showing the evils of insisting on the "strong man armed" whose business it is to keep the peace. If it is wicked to prepare for the protection of our women and children against outsiders, it is wrong to keep a police force in being to protect them from the enemies amongst us. We-will assume that Australia, which is arming, sees the wickedness of its endeavor to make its homes comparatively safe. She, therefore, suddenly destroys her new little navy, sinks her guns in the sea, disbands her soldiers, and sets out to show that "peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war." Any problematical enemy of Australia does not want military dominance for the mere sake of bloodshed or victory, but commercial expansion and occupation of territory. Without fear that anyone in the vast island continent will do anything but "turn the other cheek," the enemy in want of territory merely steps ashore, and takes it—that's all. The weak man disarmed does not keep his castle. The man who alleges lie will not fight under any provocation is merely saying things he docs not himself believe. A gentleman, who calls himself a Socialist, the other day worked himself up into quite a fighting fever when he said that he would rather go to gaol than his sons should "be torn away from their mother for purposes of military training." Maybe it is a pretty sentiment in time of peace. But in war? Suppose the mother to be torn away from the sons. That's the point. Imagine Waihi, with its alleged peaceful miners, being invaded by a foreign force. A few sticks of dynamite in the Waihi mine, a few 40-pound shells dropped in Main Street, a few hundred camp fires made from the dwellings of ihe miners, a few parties of foreign soldiers with fixed bayonets collecting the women and children to take away (o eoiicep i^it) ion ca.mps, the food supply commandeered, the water cut off, the lines blown up and the bridges down—and Mr. Semple, organiser of the Federation of Labor, begging all the boys for

heaven's sake not to fight for fear of hurting the destroyers. "In case of war," says the fighting Semple, "the coalminem of the world would 'down tools'—making war impossible." Anyone who has the happiness to know the true miner—not] the miner of the novel or the pulpit -or the Socialist hall—will admit that the white dove will have to get very busy, and at once. The coalminers of the | world, the hard, flghtable, heroic men, j who take their lives in their hands on every shift and throw it away on a chance, are going to be animated by one great idea—the idea of peace. Who is < the authority claiming that the most fightahle men the world has will, with their families, gladly starve in a bunch so that the white flag may fly? When the coalmines of the world are manned entirely by supermen controlled by one great Voice—perhaps. In the meantime war can be waged without coal. The heroic decision of the West Coast miners not to mine coal might make the Mikado give Strict instructions that coal was not to be mined in Japan? But the Socialist "mother" idea is the most appealing. The Socialist maybe knows nothing of the mother in war time. Peace time does not count. If he had seen the spirit created in the women by the appearance of a foreign army in the mother's country he would know. If he had seen the mothers of a small valiant nation, opposed to the strongest power on earth, he would know. He would have noticed that safety did not lie in attaching boys to the maternal apron strings or tethering them to the paternal stoep, but in sending them forth to make the home safe. If he had seen the whole of all the boys' schools in a military district commandeered as a last hope, he would understand the iniquity of urging boyß that defence of the home is wicked. If he had seen the mothers sewing, sewing, sewing cartridge belts for their sons, watering them with angry tears, he might begin to understand. If he would believe that babies were born underground, and that the mothers were safe only because the boys were doing their duty, lie would not talk rubbish about "tearing his sons away." If his farmhouse was smouldering—supposing he had a farmhouse—and the mother and the sons were driven forth, would he counsel the boys to "turn the other cheek"? To mako war impossible, tell the truth about it. It is a horror that he who has not seen it cannot comprehend. It is an atrocity that has been j permitted since the dawn of historylong before the days of coal. War cannot be stopped by the refusal of any man to mine coal or to bear arms; but when a nation's life is in the balance, the man who refuses to mine coal or to bear arms is the worst kind of enemy to his mother, his wife, his children, and his country. If on the international horizon there appears even the smallest olive branch it has not grown at the sowing of hysterical fighters for peace. The greatest of all international subjects is being discussed by the greatest men the world has. Peace cannot come because hysteria attacks an isolated Socialist here and there, and causes him to explode, into a refusal to carry arms. Nobody; wants a man to bear arms who is frightened to use them. War is deliberately planned and calmly carried out like a problem in Euclid. The men who plan war can plan peace, calmly, sedately, humanly, understanding the difficulties of accomplishment, and hating the thought of shouting and self-advertise-ment. To instil into the minds of the youth of New Zealand the idea that military preparation is wicked is a crime. Tt is a crime because it is an assertion that their mothers and sweethearts, their sisters and their bairns are not worth fighting for. It is a crime because it invites outside aggression. It is a coward's crime.