APPEAL TO MEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 29, 12 January 1940, Page 10

APPEAL TO MEN

To the Editor, "The Listener" Sir -In your editorial entitled "Appeal to Men," you say, "if there are other ways of defending them (our liberties) than by fighting for them, we don’t know what they are." Being a pacifist, and therefore gullible, I shall regard this as a sincere desire for knowledge on your part, and would suggest that you read Richard Gregg’s "The Power of NonViolence," and Bart de Ligt’s "Conquest of Violence." That will do for a start. When you have got through these, you may be ready to admit-though I don’t expect any editor these days publicly to acknowledge it-that there is another way: that of non-violence, passive resistance, civil disobedience etc.; and, on the positive side, of "implacable" friendship to all people. For myself, I believe that this is the only way worth trying; for although I’m only a gullible pacifist, I’m not gullible enough to believe that by using the war method again we are going to achieve any better results than we did last time. Anyway, you do acknowledge the existence of a "small section of the community which is opposed to war in any circumstances" (I am convinced that there is a much larger section which is opposed to this war in particular); and these days when everybody else is telling us how unanimous everybody is about this war, such an acknowledgment is at least something for which to be grateful. And if you publish this letter, that goes double. Yours etc.,

G.

P.

(Gullible Pacifist)

Wellington, January 4, 1940