(TO THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR:A
SIR,—It is curious how violent and how illogical a pacificist can become when he is asked an awkward question which he is unable to answer. Mr. T. E. Harvey in the course of the debate on the Military Service Bill made a speech of the extreme non-resistance type ; rather than oppose force by force he would let a German take his all. " What would you do if a German took your wife Y " interjected a Member. It was a brutal, but at the same time an extremely pertinent and crucial, question. It goes to the root of the pacificist heresy. Is resist- ance so wrong that there is no wrong greater ? Mr. Harvey prudently ignored the question. To have noticed it would have been to place himself in a dilemma, one horn of which would have impaled his heart, the other his head. Imprudently, however, a " Married Quaker," in your issue of January 29th, takes up the challenge, and, filled with pacific fury, rushes blindly on to the intellectual horn which Mr. Harvey was so careful to avoid. "Married Quaker's" heart is all right. If a German, he says, were to take his wife, he would "endeavour to make it unpleasant " for him. No distribution of " Fellowship of Reconciliation " literature on this occasion ! Excellent " Married Quaker " I He would give the German the time of his life. The German, of course, would object. There would be a battle royal. Oh that I might be in the neighbourhood to witness it and lend a ha l* I It is to be hoped, however, that a soldier or two with eifeetive weapons might also be there to assist this unarmed and untrained militarist in his unequal conflict. Otherwise he and his wife could hardly hope to escape the fate which has overwhelmed the Belgians in similar circumstances. But if " Married Quaker's " heart is vindicated, how about his head f What has become of his pacificism, and where is his doctrine of non-resistance ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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