PACIFISM AND REARMAMENT [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I
accept the correction of " Your Parliamentary Correspondent " and tender apologies for misreading him ; but he does not come to grips with the main point of my letter. Pacifists oppose rearmament because they regard war as--in Napoleon's phrase—" the sum of all the villainies." It is however also possible to object on other grounds ; for high authorities (whom I quoted) warn us that war can no longer defend a country but only " destroy civilisation." Then why should sane folk endorse the imbecility of rearmament ; and why should the Labour Party, or any Party, accept a drastic policy of reconstruction in the Distressed Areas" as a bribe for preparing to destroy the thing they reconstruct ?
The whole situation is worthy of Bedlam ; and I submit the only way out is along the line which both your Parliamen- tary Correspondent and Mr. Charles Wright ignore, but which I indicated in my previous letter as the only alternative to rearmament.
It is a commonplace to say that armaments are a reflection of policy ; and the pacifist therefore is on unassailable ground when he insists that the key to world-peace is to be found in complete reorientation of thought and action in the realm of foreign affairs ; in other words, the true alternative to frenzied preparation for war is constructive effort for peace. Such a policy—because of its intrinsic justice—would rob potential aggressors of their legitimate grievances, and so
dissipate the fears which today threaten to destroy civilisation in the very effort to save it. The common people everywhere are being induced to rearm only because statesmanship fails to point this alternative. But apparently statesmen, no less than the electorate, are .(as your Parliamentary Coire.spon- dent says) so " badly frightened " that sober judgement is inhibited, and none but the pacifist is left to plead for a change of policy in place of a policy of panic.—Yours faithfully,
Carrs Lane Church, Birmingham.
LEPTON RICHARDS.
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