The Scare

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 15, 15 April 1909, Page 569

The Scare

Bacon represents some folk as so selfish, .that they would set a house on fire merely. to roast their own. eggs. The ' yellow = ' press has been again playing this dangerous game — fanning the flame of international distrust and hate, pushing a ' situation ' towards a ' crisis,' with the. offchance of forcing a crisis into a war. In 1898, when the American ' yellow ' press was rushing the United States into a war with Spain, Mr". Labouchere published in his x paper (London Truth) the following Machiavellian proposal — which, although ' wrote sarcastic, is no more sarcasm merely than was Dean Swift's Modest Proposal for the .butchering of healthy Irish infants for the 'crosschannel meat market : ' Each country should have a- secret service corps, well instructed in all the methods of taking life by poison. So soon as a war is about to break out, each of the belligerents would endeavor to poison the sovereign, the ministers, th« representatives, and especially the journalists, of the other country. After a very few deaths, I am convinced that peace would not be broken. This may seem at first sight a startling proposal; but between poisoning men and taking their lives by shells, bullets, and other such projectiles, there is in reality mo difference; and my plan would result in a great saving of life. Instead of mowing down thousands, burning villages, and other such barbarities, a few leading men would be taken off. By the present system the few promote a war and the many suffer by it. This, indeed, is j the reason why there are wars. I would brhig the consequences of hostilities directly home to those wha. are responsible for them.' Mr. Labouchere' s little; -plan would not meet with the approval of the moralist. But he has a shrewd appreciation of the perils of a jingoistic ' yellow ' press.