THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1908. PEACE AND ARMAMENTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 2998, 22 September 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1908. PEACE AND ARMAMENTS.

.Week after week the vast majority of mankind seems more and more oppressed by warlixe pre-occupations And rightly so. But because sane patriotism must be under no illusions about the world as it is, that is no reason for not desiring and trying to improve it. Let us look upon the two sides of the case, for the advocates of peace cannot found their hopes upon a firm basi3 until they have deliberately reckoned with the worst. Throughout the world nations" are increasing their armaments and groaning under tfje costs they impose upon themselves. Those who in the past placed, their main reliance upon armies are providing themselves with bigger battalions and more terrible batteries. In many countries simultaneously, in Russia and Turkey as well as in the United Kingdom, the question of army reorganisation is one of the dominating issues in politico Even Japan is riot pausing in the work of developing her defences. Every single male sub-

ject of the Mikado will, in the long run, be a trained soldier or a trained sailor. Is this process necessarily adverse to the cause of peace? Not at all. A man who insures himself against fire does not therefore desire his premises to be burnt down, any more than his neighbour, who has taken out a life-policy, wishes for that reason to die as soon as possible. This is the tremendous paradox of the modern world, and it is a mistake not to regard it dispassionately. The accumulation of armaments and the

preservation of peace are not incompatible ideals. The weight of the naval and military budgets of the greater nations may mean a grievous burden; but every sane economist is ' aware that the expense of taking precautions in time of peace is as nothing at all to the cost of waging hostilities. Some light was thrown upon this point recently in lecture by the distinguished German officer, General von Blume. He pointed out that a first-class war would probably cost Germany alone £300,000,000 in a single year, and no one can think for a moment that this ks an extravagant estimate. We know, too, that no

two strong peoples can engage in a death-struggle without compelling all the greater Powers to come clashing together in the ultimate grapplemore awful than anything ever before known to the spprehensions of men--which would convulse the world. For these reasons those very persons may be heart and soul in favour of the cause of peace'who are in; favour of taking every step to maintain the existence and liberty of their own country; and whose imaginations are most overwhelmed by a true sense of the consequences of that one worst evil which can fall upon a nation—irreparable defeat. It may be demonstrated that wars are becoming rarer; and this fact alone justifies the conviction that, although we know not when nor how, the dream of perpetual peace will be realised. Only let us not think to realise the millennium in haste; let us not think to enjoy that c-edit and profit which never came yet tu pioneers, let us rather be content to go forth unwearied, sowing the good seed from which other generations will reap a precious harvest. Through the long centuries one tendency has continued and increased, and will prevail. Peace has become more arid more the ordinary condition of man. Never, never in the past was there a golden age. We are deceived if we think so. The dream of the millennium is no reminiscence of a former ,state, but it is a vision of the world to come. There was a time when man's life from his birth to his grave was a thing of terrors, filled unceasingly with battle and with dread. With the first appearand of armaments war became organised, and gradually it showed itself to be more and more the exception. The last conflict has not been fojght, but when it is over the rainbow will be set again in the heavens, and there will come sooner or later the final peace—gradually and infinitely prolonged, until the habit of war has faded for ever out of the world, and all its modern horrors have become some strange old rumour of I the pas^