CASUALTIES OF PEACE.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19884, 13 May 1936, Page 9

CASUALTIES OF PEACE.

(To the Editor.) Sim—l notice in your Monday's issue a let_icr against war by Mr B. LElphicli. lie puts ihc pacifist case vigorously, but, in my opinion, without sui'ilricnt consideration of outside factors. The war cost Britain 8 million l’ntalities, about which carnage the paciilsis wax eloquent. But since the Armistice the road ‘laiulilies must amount to nearly 100,000, at the rates or 100 a week, which seems to be the average, plus the greater number maimed and injured. But no great fuss is made about this day-to—day slaughter of the innocents.

So far as I can see, it makes no difference to the person killed whether lie is blown to bits by a shell or ground to pulp by a lorry; he is dead all the same. “15 attach an exaggerated importance to human life, and medical science keeps alive thousands whom a merciful nature would wipe off the slate. As for war, it will be very hard to eliminate it so long as the impulse lo ilglii remains :1 human instinct, and especially if it appears to pay. as iiuiy's \‘cnlure in Abyssiniu. No one who has sturiied human life can fail in see that by the nature of things force is the lluul .jutige.—l am, utc., VERI’I‘AS.

Ngm‘uawahla, May 11‘