The Spirit of Peace
There are many hopeful signs in the world to-day which counteract the evil elements. The peace spirit is spreading between nations, if not between classes. The British people, in the Mother Country and in the sister nations of the Empire, stand solidly and almost passionately for peace in the world. It is true, as cynics point out, that the material interests of the British Empire are safeguarded by peace, and that poverty in gold and man-power and military strength has brought about this dove-like attitude. That is true, but not all the truth, nor the best part of it.
It is also true that in most of the homes in England, Scotland and Wales the memory of dead boys sacrificed to the war spirit has produced a loathing of war which compels these people to seek for some new leadership, some new philosophy of statesmanship, some new system of international agreement, which will prevent another sacrifice like that among their children and children’s children. They may not regret with passionate revolt the call which caused those boys of ours to die—though many do—and they may believe with unchanging faith that if it happened again in that way the duty of youth would be to fight as they fought and die as they died in a righteous cause and in defence of that country. There are not many pacifists in England or Scotland who think that all war is wrong, or even that the last war was wrong. But they are all pacifists in believing that another war must be prevented by eliminating the causes of quarrel. They are all League of Nations men—and women—in allegiance to the spirit of the League, even if they deplore its weakness and futility. In the vast majority they would refuse now to follow any leadership which involved them in war, beyond military police work on far frontiers, unless the safety of the Empire or civilisation itself were utterly at stake.
That may seem like “hedging.” It leaves a loophole for wars in India, Africa, Egypt. To some extent it is “hedging,” for even the Labour Party, most vowed to peace, is prepared to use the regular army for the protection of the Soudan or the crushing of rebellion in India. But with certain mental reservations and irresistible exceptions, which I think all nations would make (the greatest pacifists in the United States would advocate force against a Black rebellion in the Southern States) the British people, apart from a very small minority, will give an eager support to any plan for general disarmament down to the irreducible minimum for maintaining the military police work of the world, and will be hostile to any power or leadership which is convicted of warlike policy and designs. It is not a negligible fact in world history when an assembly of nations like the British Empire is dedicated to the spirit of international peace, at least within the confines of the white races of the world, and, if possible, of liberal forms of government, gradual relaxation of direct control in its Eastern world. It is the first time that it has happened with such spiritual conviction in the minds of millions.