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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 208, 22 January 1913, Page 4

WHO ARE THE MAKERS OF WAR? The London Times some weeks ago published a remarkable article inspired by the fear that out of the Balkan struggle, then regarded as practically at an end, would grow a greater war involving some of the European Powers. "There is no great nation in Europe which today* has the least desire that millions of men should be torn from their homes and flung headlong to destruction at the bidding of vain ambitions," said the Times. ''The Balkan peoples fought for a cause which was peculiarly their own. They were inspired by the memories of centuries of wrong which they were burning to avenge. The larger nations have no such quarrel, unless it is wilfully manufactured for them. The common-sense of the people of Europe i» well aware that no issue has been presented which could not be settled bv amicable discussion. In England men will learn with amazement and incredulity that war is possible over the question of a Servian port, or even over the larger issues which are said to lie behind it. Yet that is whither the nations are blindly drifting. Who, then, makes war? The answer is to be found in the Chancelleries of Europe, among the men who have too long played with human lives as pawns in a game of chess, who have become so enmeshed in formulas and the jargon of diplomacy that they have ceased to be conscious* of the poignant realities with which they trifle. And thus will war continue to be made," added the Times, "until the great mass who are the sport of professional schemers and dreamers say the word which shall bring, not eternal peace, for that is impossible, but a determination that wars shall be fought only in a just and righteous and vital cause. If that word is ever to be spoken, there never was a more appropriate occasion than the present; and we trust it will be spoken while there is yet time." That is a fine statement, and a very remarkable one, considering that it was made by the Time*. "This sudden revolt against old diplomacy is," says the Westminster Gazette, "pretty high language for the journal which more than any other in Europe is regarded as the organ of the Chancelleries and their traditional diplomacy. When the Times turns to the Gentiles, and begs the masses to come in and put the 'professional schemers" in their places, we may well become aware of the profound repugnance with which ordinary men and women regard the drift of a polite diplomacy towards the civilisation and a confession of the utter shambles." But another statement made by the Times the day before is equally remarkable. It declared that—•The spectacle of the great Christian Powers drifting automatically into conflict over Uie termination of 500 years of misrule in the Balkans would be* regarded in Great Britain as a crime against, failure of European progress and ideals."