Loss of Faith To the Editor of the "Nonru-Cunwa Darty News Sun—I have purposely delayed this letter refering to your last Saturday's leading srticle—-and several previous ones of a similar. kind—by two days, because if it had appeared in your Monday's issue some of my British friends might, with considerable justification, "have accused me of a want of tact for having it published fon the day when they, together with the rest of the world were celebrating the Silver Jubilee of their Nation's ruler for whom nobody can feel anything but the highest admiration and respect, and when every semblance of disharmony should be carefully avoided.
Having thus cleared the way for action I rise in protest against. your Fepeated attempts to puta sinister complexion on Germany's recent actions, by conjuring up more or less inane excuses which she might plead extenuation of what she is doing, for the specific purpose of knocking them down and thereby proving her to be in the wrong, and generally confusing the issue by a plethora of involved dialectics on the good old principle of "win, tie or wrangle", manner of argumentation not entirely unknown inthe realm of political oratory and journalism, and somewhat suggestive of the habit of the cuttlefish to obscure its surroundings with liberal squirts of ink whenever aroused from its somnolent 2omlacency.
As a matter of fact Germany's line of action is very plain, and her reasons for it quite simple and obvious; fley can be summarized in one "brief sentence: "honourable equality in every respect," and only' fan unconditional admittance that she entitled to such equality. will satisfy Germany now, after the victor: powers, in spite of their repeated mealy-mouthed assurances, have not only failed to full their disarmament obligations under the Versailles 'Treaty but have continued to Ineease their armaments to an unprecedented extent. Only a month or so. ago England's First Lord of the Admi alty, in an address delivered at Birmingham, drew the attention of haig hearers' to the fact that since the Locarno Treaty France "and Russla—to mention only two of the defaulting "powers—had increased their armament by 102 and 107 per cent. respectively!
Is it under these circumstan really a matter for surprise Indignation if Germany with Uttle toy army, hedged by a ring of powerful "former enemy—nations bristling in arms, after repeatedly warning those powers that if they did not soon start arming down" she would have to arm up, has finally. Jost all fafth in' the assurances of these nations and has at Inst started building up a defensive force of her own? The old saying that the big shes eat the little ones unfortunately still holds good, and Germany definite. ly refuses to be a Little fish, and ultimately suffer the fate of one, uny Germany wants peace; peace with) honour. She needs it more than any' other nation and before anything else, for her economic recovery, Another war would "spell ruin for' ber, although not for her alone, To} ensure peace she may for all we Know even go to the length of re-Joining that somewhat" grotesque debating society commonly known the League of (Haluet—)—Nations, provided that all the rights and privileges are accorded to her which she is entitled ae a great nation.
Does anybody with only a te spoonful of brains seriously maintain that because Germany lost a war after fighting three quarters of the world for more than four years, she is forever {0 remain in bondage, 2 helpless and defenceless vassal state? Is she for all time to abide by the many oppressive stipulations of the Versailles Treaty while the other: parties to it consistently evade fulflment of the one and only obligation to which they subscribed Under it? Is she everlastingly bound to observe every clause of a treaty of the kind. Which savage nigger tribes may Jnfllet_on their vanquished foe, but to which no civilized nation ever condemned another? Shall the fallen lant in all eternity be kept strapped to the ground, that every one of the puny statesmen who now govern his former enemy countries may now and then take a flying kick at him?
To talk about the sanctity treaties in connection with such a document dictated at the point gun, is sheer blasphemy.
If the vindictive old men in whose senile brains this vicious document] originated, were incapable of per-eelying the glorious opportunity they held in their hands to bring this suffering world appreciably nearer to the fundamental idea! of Chris-tendon: "Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men", they might at Toast have retained suMclent sense of proportion to realize the impos-Sibility of condemning to ever-fisting subordinacy 3 great and proud people: "the greatest _people on God's Earth except. Jourselves", as General Sir Herbert gough called us with charm ing modesty the other day when, addressing his old comrades of the Fifth Army, he tried to explain away the fearful débicle of Passchendaele, a "ghastly shlemozzle" as my old friend Tzzy Silberstein would have called it.
"You can't keep a good man down" as the South-Sea' Island. Chief realized to his sorrow after he had partaken too freely of roast missionary, Much less can you keep down millions of good men that make up great people, so great that even proud British' General cannot help admitting the fact.
This little world is getting smaller all the time, "One can weft visualize an aviator going up early in the niorning in' Moscow, having his breakfast in Warsaw,' his lunch in Berlin, his dinner in Paris and some supper in London, with enough time loft to go out and see the town, and then having a little chat with a friend in America or Australia before calling it a day. Human nature is much the same everywhere, and under the skin we are all alike. Peoples do not want war: way should they want to go out and kill somebody whom they never saw before, and who has never done them any harm? All they want is to be left alone so that they can Ull the sell or ply their trade in peace and quietude.
Why under such circumstances the inhabitants of those little spots on the map of Europe called coun. tries must yet every now and then fly each other's throat and Kill one nother off in millions by machinery Yeally passes "one's understanding. Wher in mediaeval times human beings were owned by the sovereigns, nieh the same as a farmer owns his farm and his cattle, there may have been some sense in it when' tone of them made war on his nelghhour to rob him of his land and his. hheman caitle, at least as far as those crowned cattle thieves were concerned. But what can Kings 0f Governments nowadays gain by going to war, particularly in view of the terrific cost a modern war Involves?
If one benefit was derived from the last war it was the realization that warfare no longer pays, that the end. all participants are losers. Tt ly from such practical considers tions that "finally a materialization of the ideal may result which Burns the Glorious had in his prophetic And Come st will for all. that." "That man to "man the world all-wil brothers be for all that."
Shanghai, May Tth.
***Comment on page 252.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.