To the Editor of the MNowrit-Cuina Daty, News."
Stt,—Your cortésponident H, A. T. states "Great empires have. been wiped out because the leaders lost) the, spirit ~6f competition," but this, seems to. me to be contrary to all my reading of history: One historian states definitely "All the dead' civilisations of the past were over-, thrown of absorbed by military violence." They were wiped out, sitiply because. they had the spirit of competition, the tyrannical spirit, the spirit of wishing to govern other people for their own advantage. Competition between nations leads to militarism, and the worship of the no right to extend indefinitely on a Jaubjeet to which the public seems to show little' interest and attention. Difference of education, diversity of interest, varying thoughts. and con—vietions; all these are in the way of! lone of us accepting the views of the other, However honest and unbiased we may ¢ry to be, it will be a miracle indeed if one of us, after the exchange of a few letters, can be won lover to the views of the other.
Formidable indeed is the funda. mental question before us. "We must think of man as a living species in the cosmic scheme," says "H.A.T." The riddle as to what man actually] isis yet to be solved. Can we consider "strong: man."
The military party,|him as, consi i ing of nothing but the post of strife ang competi physical energy and chemical atoms? tion will wreck any nation, and it] "will, probably not go. is this very faction which supported fat as that, To him man is a living Yuan Shih-kai in 1918 and has lett, species; he is endowed with life. the country in the hands of the But what is life? In appearance the military party.
Brute force which, has a purely selfish aim fu is not rom inanimate Wioge The eta so-called living beings are different.
controlled snd stibordinate to reason' the: moon are moving; little streams Tends to destruction, That is why; water flow into big rivers and in all modern. states the Minister of} axow into mighty'sea. The inanimate War is almost invariably a civilian, things too show activities ani Have we so soon forgotten the great growth, but their activity and growth lesson of the great European War? jure governed by the fixed physical Germany was dominated by the laws. Herein then lies the difference: military: party which lead the whole! {between lif and things devoid of world into war. To say that "War life, Not only life can grow and be beyond human control" is nonsense, active, but in such growth and Now-t-days the nation that does not activity it is not bound by, the control war, or its army, aid physical and chemical laws. 'I do militarism is doomed to extihetion, not mean" that physical and 'War must be controlled, and replaced chemical laws are violated in any by national ideals of world loyalty' way, which Is impossible; what I do and world service. Men must control mean is that these laws are overcome the military spirit, ang-turn that and controlled by a superior being. energy to combat world wide disease, Thus in spite of the Inw of gravitapoverty, inequality. and injustice. tion, birds can fly up in the ale; in Man's destiny must be controlled by spite of the law of inertia, dogs can higher standard of, othics, and the suddenly to a run and then civilian must see to it that the state as suddenly stop. In appearance is organized so as to accomplish those dogs and birds are but more complex higher aims. If mankind does not forms of chemical compounds; but la that then warfare will lead to self-reality, they transcend all these chemical laws and belong to the higher organig world, T am, ete, Dogs and birds are what we call iving beings, but man is essentially
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.