Dean W. R. Inge Says

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 41, 19 April 1935, Page 19

Dean W. R. Inge Says

The most primitive tribes seem. not to be very pugnacious. It does not occur to two teams of footballers that they will score an inconceivable number of goals if the; co-operate instead of competing, The irrationality of the whole business is more evident than ever before. Nor are the prizes of victory worth having. To exact an indemnity is only to create unemployment at home. They (combatant nations) usually share the same. religion-the religion which began by proclaiming: peace on earth. The shareholders in armament firms are mostly small investors who have no interest in creating war. The wish to stave off revolution at home is a potent cause of war. The case against war is not always elear, but the main cause of war is andoubtedly fear. Ill-feeling does not matter much, ‘but where there is fear there is danger. The causes of fear must be re- _ moved or they will, at some future day, bring about a repetition of the same awful tragedy. This sounds brutal, but the truth is brutal. This is the crux of the whole problem: Can the League of Nations

restrain a Power which wishes to jreak the peace? Are we to promise to take part in another Continental war? Another war would very likely be the end of Western civilisation, and _thereis no nation which would be s9 utterly ruined by an unsuccessful ‘war as Great Britain. I do not, myself, expect another war, because the hideous conse: quencés to all the belligerents cana be plainly foreseen,’ and in the next war all who have anything to lose will lose it. Half a dozen unintelligent and reckless politicians may throw the spark into the magazine. Many people say that.Christianity has failed. Christianity has not failed, because it has not been tried, There has been a-shocking assump-. tion that Christian ethics apply only to the individual. "The Sermon on: the Mount has nothing to do with’ politics."-Here is a lie which should be ‘nailed to the counter. We ‘know now how it works out in practice. — There is nothing in-the New Testament to-lead ‘us to expect an‘ inconvenient crowd at the Narrow Gate. If we are Christians we shall remember that the fervent prayer of the common man availeth much.