"No more war" demonstrations occupied a considerable number of good folk in Great Britain about: A month ago, There is nothing: original in this, nothing on which we can base any sure hope of an approaching millennium, There were probably "no more war" demonstrations in Carthage and Babylon, and the same may be expected so long as there are humans frvational enough to quarrel "and reasonable enough to philosophies about their differences. To. the ern tory accompanying these same demonstrations Mr. Norman Angell—the writer who correctly foretold that modern warfare inevitably must result in loss. to. victor and anguished, but who forgot that pounds shillings and pence are not the Jast words in the matter—contributed a pithy remark, vis, that the most devastating thing "about agitations for peace is that "in pence-time everybody is in favour of peace, but when war comes every body goes to war." The fallacy of this remark fs that not everybody. 4s In favour of peace in peace time. On the contrary, a very consider able number of people then occupy. themselves quietly in preparing for wan not a war of deliberate aggression, but war in defence of national rights and principles (to Say nothing of prejudices). The instinct of self-preservation, strong the individual and overwhelming powerful in a determined nation, will convert the most, peace-loving:
izen into an ardent belligerent. Hence the paradox to which Norman Angell makes irenic allusion. Even the idea of peace itself inspires aggression: as witness the Soviet scheme for smashing society order to produce world peace for a hobnailed proletariat.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.