THE GREAT ILLUSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 188, 28 December 1912, Page 6

THE GREAT ILLUSION.

I REV, BURTON'S INDICTMENT. j ;At the Wesleyan Church, New Plymouth, last Sunday evening, the Rev. J. W. Burton spoke forcibly on tin;, subject of j militarism. He "took ,for his text, "Ye have heard, thai' itwas 'said, an eye for an eye, and a 190 th for'a tooth; but I say unt.o you, Resist riot evil; but whosoever smitetli tliee ,on thy cheek, turn to him the, other also/' 1 (S\fat. 5, We have to : tfjank a neighboring contemporary for the following extracts from the sermon, which bristled with striking thoughts:'—" , KNIGHTHOOD FOR SOAP AND ! TEA. —.—- Men are finding it rik-eimry'td' Apologise fori war. There was "a-time when .theyv gloried in a ' battle ; : -tb4lh!y, the best, men do their'utmost to prevent it. Once the soldier was'thfe only iuiight, I and he ;won his spurs in fierce personal |'contest; now, if a man makes a good | soap, or sells a popular tea,' he'is honored by Royalty. And rightly soy for lie has done the -State a wider service. The j soldier 'is taking si,'secondary place in , our national esteem: lie 'is-■ dropping down the ladder rung .by rung, aiild soon his calling will-be dfespisrid as much as that ofj the common hangman; The civilised; world is saying that war is hellish, and defends the piling tip of ; armaments only because it is in. the .interests of. peacg. Once men commehci to apologise for a condition, they have taken the .firsij steps to end it. ; Our thinkers are declaring that war, on any large scale, isj not only 'fntilfc lint There isi not enough moneyiu the, world to,furnish the means,f6r a really good .sta'itd-up fight between two first-elaSi? navies. J There is no. hope, they tell iis, of killing- the enemy by warfare; 1 he must be killed by exhaustion prodiioed by preparing for -the wa'r that 'call never -|)e. ■ Tikis is what/Norniaji .^li'gell-called "The Gi'eat Illusion." '' 1

It is jthis- competition in armaments which is draining our national life and which means the ultimate decay of. our nation, i ' . PREPARATION FOE WAR. , The masses .are revolting, anil 'earn we wonder? Remember that "the'-civilised world npw. spends some .£406,000,000 on preparing for war.. Over .two-thirds of ihe total expenditure, of Great Britain is for sharpening swords that will never be used, and for building warships that axe obsolete before the paint -On them has dried.' ; There was a little war' in South Africa engineered by the 'capitalist class, which h(is cost already nearly ..£300,0u0,000, and is likely to cost us not less than before the.' debt is cleared pfT. The average working man says: What has ihiff to do with me? Why should I pay Ijixes for this? And the, British working man is growing "goo'd pals" with his fellows in Germany and elsewhere. lie is ignorant no longer, and .he is shrewd enough to .see his interests are more nearly allied with those of his sweating brother in Germany than they are with those of My Lord• and My'-' Lady in England. So he is organising against; war, and making compacts with his brother across the sea that in the event of war being declared between their respective countries, he will "down noughts spit harmlessly at one another. And can we blame him? He wants more butter on his bread, and he sees that it will nut come from the upper classes, as they are ironically called. NEW ZEALAND'S GIFT.

It is' to be regretted that this bright little Dominion of ours has been drawn into the awful vortex. A little while ago, one of our statesmen got himself honor and glory by giving a Dreadnought to the Empire. We are still paying for this handsome gift, and it will cost us more than would complete our railways in Taranaki—without any returns in prosperity. Now, we are told that the vessel is out of date! All we have to he proud of is the loan. That will not be out of date for many years to come. PROTECTED BY THE DEVIL. Our baby army has cost us about half a million—an army which no sane man suggests could repel the only sort of assault that could be made, viz., by sea. Now we are being told that we must have a navy to protect the Territorials: then a flotilla of airships to protect l!ie navy; and then we must lure the devil to protect the airships. But 1 do not think we need worry overmuch on account of the present system of militarism. The New Zealamler is as impulsive as a Celt; but he is as canny as a Scotchman. The system will break down ox its own weight, for the taxpayer is suspicious of any increase, and, moreover, our young New Zealander is growing tired already, and has to be given a good many little picnics to make him come to their Territorial Sunday School. I should be the last to

advocate urging our young men to break the law—unless under the strongest demand of conscience—but I do feel that every citizen who thinks as I do has the most perfect right by argument anil reason to do what lie can to repeal this law. The usual reply to every argument at present is a volley of epithets or a little hooliganism; but this question will be settled in the end, not by patriotic ditties and flag-waving,_ but by sober argument, and by a sense of hu- ' death on the military EXPERT. There is, too, a growing distrust of our military experts. The experts have made so many false prophecies that we wonder whether they are so fully inspired as we imagined. To use an everyday expression, "they nearly always put their money on the wrong horse." told us that Spain must conquer England at the' time of the Armada; but she,did not. Thcv were confident that Russia would annihilate Jo pan; but the great Bear retired wounded. They made merry over the attempt of the Balkan States to meet the well-trained Turkish army; but their laugh lias die«i away. They can weigh warships, qount rifles, and classify manoeuvres, but they cannot foretell storm" and flood;,they cannot jneasure spirit and brain. ■, SINISTER TRAIL. OP SELFINTEREST. We are commencing to suspect the sinister trailiof self-intrerqst; ..Huge vested interests now take part in the programme of the nations. In Germany they :have the "armor plate press," with its wealth and influence. Every incident that shows Britain in an unfavorable light is exaggerated and distorted. According to this section of the newspaper w6rld, tilers' is only one idea in the mind < of the Britisher—to kill off the Germans by robbing them of their trade—and yet .we buy German clocks and crockery by the hundred thousand. The armament people have huge companies with vast share capital, and the ramifications of this financial interest are almost worldwide.

PUGNACIOUS MILITARY MEN. Our own Yellow Press inflames us against ether nations. A-few Japanese settle in New' Caledonia to work the incalculably rich mines there, and ]o! this is part of a deep-laid scheme to conquer Australia.. They attempt to reach the South l?ole—a little squad of amateur scientists —and we got "funk" and wonder if we are going to be overran from the Ear.t. ■ A halloom floats over part of our Empire, and the Yellow Press makes ,us expect death-laden bombs. We are losing our nerve and firing pistols in fright.' It is-oui"self-interested and pugnacious military men who are our- greatest danger. • MILITARISM AND JINGOISM ANTICHRISTIAN. The preacher then went on to show that militarism and jingoism were utterly foreign to the spirit of Christ, who taught and practised non-resistance. Christ's, way ; ha ; d al ways proved the safest. It was the Christian spirit that killed slavery, though W said it meant national ruin; it was this spirit which ended duelling in England, although men said we should become, a race of women. As individuals they now realised that braggart assertion and swaggering bravado win nothing in life. They had yet to learn that the same wiis- true. in our national temper. , DISARMAMENT. He lirmly believed .that the nation that; is great enough to take courage i in both hands, and disarm absolutely,' will gain the truest and richest priy.es j in the world. "It should." he said, "be j our endeavor to bi'ing about as far as we may that great consummation. We would not do it by adopting the jingo tone. We were coming to understand Germany better, until the other day Canada ran amok, and, as the result of political craftiness, offered Dreadnoughts. Then Germany but up the bid higher; and we shall whine that she is hypocritical in her desires for peace. Let us change.the lying Latin motto and make it read. "If you want peace, prepare for peace"—pray for it, work for it, live for it, and, if necessary, die for it.