THE WAR'S REDEEMING POINT.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1916, Page 4

THE WAR'S REDEEMING POINT.

Hail King Solomon lived in our day fnd been impelled to make use of his wisdom in connection with the present war he might have said: Out of the slaughter of millions will happiness ceme to the world. In such a way may a very interesting article, in the Round Table he summed up. Discussing the question of the final gain of the war to the world that journal contends that the war, in showing us that the ancient cause of liberty (for which we had fought in the past) had still»to bo won, has given us a unity we have not known for many a day. In entering it we redeemed, at a heavy price, the mistakes and blindness of a selfish past. But the war has done more. It has disclosed to us that when this battle is won we have still the greater mission of helping to bring unity and brotherhood to all Mankind. That mission is, perhaps, the greatest to which any peoples could .be called. Let us, says the writer, shoulder it manfully, and In doing so let us remember that it will be achieved only in so far as we think of others as well as of ourselves, and banish from our hearts hatred and envy, greed and revenge. As Mazzini wrote: "To fight injustice and errors everywhere, for our brother's sake, is not a right only, but a duty—a duty that \vc may not \vithout sin neglect—a duty that lasts as long as life." In thus working for the world we shall heal our own wounds. The barren strife between parties will merge into a healthy controversy as to how the common good is to he secured. ' The struggle between capital and labor will be lees bittev when both sides think first of how they can help one another to an ampler and more human life, and how their joint activity can benefit the community as a whole. The Imperial problem, too, will be simple when it ceases to be a matter of rights, and becomes a question of how the units can best associate and help the nations of the earth to unity and peace. In working for those measures, which will make impossible for ever the merciless fratricide and the untold griefs and sufferings of nationalist wars, we shall gain also that internal harmony and peace for which, if we think only of attaining them for ourselves, we shall strive in vain. It may seem to some that this picture of world happiness is toe much to expect, but when the awful details of the war are considered, unless the world is made better and happier, the fight for liberty and against oppression will have been waged in vain.