The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1911. THE AGE OF REASON.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 66, 8 September 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1911. THE AGE OF REASON.

At the moment, because of a particularly trifling international quarrel relating to a. particularly unimportant part of the earth, Morocco, there is grave concern throughout Europe and the British Empire. Because of this unrest, armies are moving and navies coaling. In the not very remote future the problem of existence in a world whose supplies are being wasted will be the chief concern of man. He will have to concentrate his attention, not on destruction of either human life or what it lives on, but on the use of elemental forces to make existence sure. Latter day people arc accused of a nervous sentiment that is antithetic to the brutal aggressiveness of our forefathers. We conceive our uneducated ancestors, who transported human beings for the theft of a shillingsworth of goods, to have been wickedly harsh and unjustifiably cruel. We can still find it in our hearts, however, to admire those of our .-washbiickling relatives who "trod the seas" and lived on pillage, rapine and murder, for there are degrees in all things. It is perhaps noble to cripple a fleet, kill its crews, and steal booty, but detestable to set a fellow citizen swinging for horse-steal-ing. The nervous hypersensitive nations who are beginning to even feel for the poor and the starving and llie sick, to save life, to feed the hungry, to succour the weary, still by their actions imply a desire to engage in devastation, beside which all the hanging* and rackings and pilloryings, and transportations and the rest are mere benisons. "Hecause I want another acre of land." says the modern humanitarian, "I will kill my neighbor and spend enough in blood and money to buy twenty acres." That is familiarly an illustration of tire international attitude. The nervous humanitarian nations, who pray for a better time for the weak, the ailing and the criminal, are, we. will say, eight in number. To be assured of peace they nre spending three hundred and thirtyfive millions, three hundred and sixty thousand pounds per year for war; an infinitely larger sum in gold than the whole earth has produced in many years. The result of this peaceful expenditure? Poverty, industrial unrest, a feverish fancy that all is not well either with the. homes of the nations or of the nations themselves. We hear frequently enough the oft-lipped quotation, "the pen is mightier than the sword." but the pen in relation to unrest and war is of no service as a solvent of wicked international strain, unless it can prove calmly and irresistibly that the nations that are hurrying to war are hurrying to bankruptcy too. Since Norman Angell wielded a pen that is perhaps mightier than any sword that has swung for liberty in two centuries, in "The Great. Illusiitn," the seed sown by his deliberate reasoning in proving the ''nnpayableness" of war. has liurricd many other sterling pens to the fray. Even when these pens merely explain the obvious, they mav sel. some more people thinking. Anatoli France. for instance, expressed the fact lliat the whole of Morocco is not worth one week's war. To-day the intricacies of commerce so interweave the nations that the warring of any two powers is shockingly destructive even to those others not engaged in conflict'. The overpeopling of the earth has rendered the nations mostly interdependent. A conquering nation, under modern conditions, simply accepts further burdens which it would have been unable to carry even without war. The unthinkable, detraction consequent on a modern conflict, would so cripple the resources of conqueror and conquered that, they must revert to mutual co-operation to mend the situation and to restore, normality. No nation, one would think, desires physical pnramountcv for the «ake of saying, "I am cock of the walk." No nation is able to obtain more food, more comforts, greater advance, or increased commerce

by destroying commerce on which it is l in part dependent. Wc are told by the pens "which are mightier' that these great armaments are being maintained at the expense of human life. The expenditure, of millions on ships decrease* the spending |>owe<r of the people. Decreased spending power means fewer children, less food, decreased vitality, impoverishment of natural resources, and title scouring of an earth that is fast wearing out to supply the necessaries for slaying. Incalculable quantities of material are used daily that can never be replaced, the earth is becoming smaller and more arid, everybody is in a frantic state of dollar getting, and the future of the race concerns the present, race not at all. The greatest preparations of all are for the destruction of the greatest number of human bodies in the shortest possible time. The very nature of these preparations are destructive, even without use, for they drain the life-blood of all nature and increase the tension of all living beings. The last century and the piece of this one already gone have been times of intolerable rush and commercial aggression, not in any way advantageous to humanity, but to a. selected few human beings whose aggressions have robbed humanity if its lawful possessions. In the saner centuries that may come, it will probably be held by students of history that the 10th and 20th centuries were Temarkable for general madness, for the people of the coming centuries, have to repair the enormous ravages greed and nervousness have made on the world's diminishing stores.

THE FRENCH ARMY.

-Mast .armies are based on the French model, and in our own the (Gallic pattern shows through unmistakably. We are apt nowadays to regard France as a more or less decadent country, except that we are pounded in the brain with the essential fact that France is the richest country in the world as far as the general public are concerned, and is certainly one of the most ardently patriotic and among the few that could l>e self-supporting if she wished. France owes her wealth to the diffusion of prosperity;, her very real democracy and her laud system which encourages the peasant owner (not the peasant lessee, but the present freeholder). who is the best agriculturist on earth, the most frugal, and certainly the happiest. We may believe that the once conquering legions of France are now soft with idleness and useless. But the French army is a vigorous national institution, dear to every son and daughter of Gaul, and willing, as ever, to live for the country, if .possible, to die for it if necessary. We in our imported chairs may be.disposed to pooh pooh the idea of the army of France licking the Kaiser's legions, but there is not a man in France or a woman cither who would not gladly endeavor to prove the contrary to-morrow if need be. France fa not decadent while she believes in herself, and she believes heart and soul that she could lick Germany. General Zurlindcn, formerly Minister for War. has lately written an article on the condition of the army in "Le Gaulois," and points out that in the year of the Franco-Prussian war Germany had everything in her favor. That is not so now. "To-day," he said, "the Germans would find us formidable. Our army corj®, our armies are ready; like theirs, our mobilisation, concentration, railway transport, are admirably prepared. Our infantry, artillery, and cavalry are well trained for the marches and combats of war on a large scale. They have been taught to assume the offensive, which alone can bring success. They long to be able to utter their old war cry, 'En avaut.' Our corps of engineers is skilfully organised for everything connected with communication, transport, and aerial navigation, in which we are distinctly the best. The regimental officers are well instructed and full of 'go,' and never have the staff officers' been more carefully selected. We are now rich in generals trained for a big war, and the excellence and spirit of our oflicers and soldiers are unrivalled. Then, the calm, sang froid, the patriotism of the nation itself may be taken into consideration."