THE ATOMIC BOMB
Sir,-Without wishing to take away your hope (since you need it to live) we would like to criticise the reasoning in your "leader" drawing optimistic conclusions from the atomic bomb. War, you suggest, may henceforth appear so terrible that mankind will no longer resort to it. This it has never been in modern times, you say, since it. has claimed, at most, a mere 10 per cent, in the countries worst hit. "We make war because wars, so far, have proved relatively harmless." Your contention reminds us of the communiques we sometimes hear: "The casualties were negligible." They may be few; they are never negligible to those who suffer them. The confusion here (as in your leader) seems to be between the individual and the community. Some would go to war even in face of certain death, but the vast majority of us speculate on that 90 per cent. chance for us and ours of getting through. We are insufficiently conscious of the cost to those who pay it. Otherwise we would realise that any other solution to international disputes is preferable to war. As individuals, of course, we do not "make war," but consent to it; but because we are persuaded that the alternative to war is something worse. This belief is possible because we are unable to foresee the cost, which, in any case, we hope will fall on others, especially the enemy. This brings us back to the atomic bomb. Does it not open up the prospect of increased suspicion, more feverish arming, and the determination that the enemy, if he cannot be kept down, shall receive a crushing blow before he can get one in on us? We would suggest that real hope does not lie in ever more horrible ways of waging war. It lies in heightened individual sensibility. If we were sufficiently keenly aware of the terrible cost of war we would be readier to face the sacrifices needed to maintain peace. What those sacrifices are-for, let us make no mistake, there would be some-opens up another question. M. and R. GOODMAN (Kaiaua).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 323, 31 August 1945, Page 5
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352THE ATOMIC BOMB New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 323, 31 August 1945, Page 5
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