WHAT SHOULD WE FIGHT FOR ?-IV
Under Thirty Page
By DESMOND HAWKINS
[The writer, who •is aged twenty-nine, is Literary Editor of " Purpose "] The national answer is the kind of answer that a statesman What is at the back of much of our pacificism is a suspicion would have to make, taking into consideration the nature and that these incentives would be lacking in our own case. the development of the British Empire. The question then When we consider what we should fight for, we are power- becomes, " What do the character and the purpose of the fully influenced, I suspect, not to fight for sectional interests nation oblige us to fight for ? " As I see it, one cannot or sectional immunity. We have been taught to wonder rightfully enjoy the amenities of a certain kind of civilisation if modem war may not often be a part of commercial withcut also accepting the responsibilities that go with it. enterprise or the policy of a particular statesman. We What, then, is our kind of civilisation ? Surely it is a civilisa- have seen that lives are conscripted but that possessions tion based upon three hundred and fifty years of fighting. are not. We have seen that the bodies of posterity cannot Even in the present century our Government was claiming be borrowed, but that its income can—to pay interest on African land explicitly by " right of conquest," a claim morally the loans so " patriotically " made by the living. What no different from a not much more recent one that we regard saps our courage is not so much the thought of death as with horror. I do not justify these things ; I merely record the prospect of coming home maimed to help pay that them. I think it was Talleyrand who said, " You can do interest to those who saved not only their bodies, not only everything with a bayonet except sit on it." But not only their capital even, but also their " right " to receive interest is it impossible for us to sit on our bayonet; it is, I suggest, on it. What has made us reluctant, in fact, is the suspicion unseemly to expect co-operation in doing so at a time when that a war may break out which was not unavoidable and it is almost blunted with generations of successful use. We which will not be equally shared. Our personal and our are a large landlord. We live well because the rents come in. national answer are not quite the same because we are to We may have administered our property in accordance with some extent inadequately integrated within the nation. the loftiest ideals, but our title-deed was, and in the last The public face of England today tends to be an historical resort still is, the sword. To suggest that we might pursue façade behind which we do not stand with enthusiasm in an unqualified neutrality, a Roman in Swiss clothing, is ludi- all our moments. If I am required to give a specific instance, crous. If Australia were attacked we should be bound to fight. I will enquire who would fight for the sake of the Mexican Nor is it merely a matter of kinship. If Egypt or India were Oil Companies.
invaded we should likewise be bound to fight. We have large My conclusion is this : before the question, " What possessions : if we are really determined not to defend them, should we fight for ? " can be answered, there must be a we must put them on the doorstep for the first caller and homogeneous " we." There must be a sense of community, completely reshape our political and social life. I see no of nationhood. Men who feel a closer kinship with foreign signs of a political franciscanism of that sort. political associates than with native political opponents, I now want to investigate the effect of this on our uncompro- and men who have nothing that they value to defend, are mising pacifists. They live in a nation which cannot possibly unable to associate themselves with any " we " that might adopt their pacifism without obtaining the consent of the rest of fight. It has to be remembered that the greatest revolution the world or without completely altering its own character. in modern warfare is the disappearance of the civilian as Short of these alternatives, which I believe we may rule out, the such. Today we are all involved, and that has made us pacifist is pledged to a philosophy which is falsified by his much more suspicious and critical of the occasions of war. environment. In so far as he is an individual within a nation, I suggest that, short of a peaceful redistribution of terri- and not merely in vacuo, he is betrayed into hypocrisy. But tories, we should fight for these things : the integrity of the pacifist who makes no reservations is rare. Most men will the Empire, unmolested passage of shipping on the high fight when the issue is unequivocal. Let us imagine a primi- seas, the independence of France and the Low Countries, tive village community which is subject to occasional raids, the independence of the United States and in general for perhar s by slave-dealers. I cannot believe that any man— the preservation of our native religion and cultur.!. And other than a monk—in such circumstances would consider the things we should not fight for are the desire of individual not fighting in self-defence. Why, then, we may ask, is this statesmen for an " adventure " ; narrow, sectional and series of articles being written ? Why is there any question . rapacious commercial interests ; the repression of other of what we should fight for, if the answer is to be the welfare peoples whose internal politics we may not like ; and any and safety of the community ? Is it merely a matter of inter- instance of that most fragile of commodities, a political pretation, a doubt whether the preservation of France ideal (supposing for the moment that such a thing is not a and the Low Countries is so important as we think ? Are we contradiction in terms). But the underlying condition just voting on policies, a straw-vote to guide our statesmen ? is that we should first be jeopardised as a community, and I believe there is more to it than that. So far I have that the burden of sacrifice should be justly shared accordingly suggested that England cannot behave as if she were Switzer- to the resources of each in wealth and limb. Then, and land, and that imcompromising pacifists are very rare ; only then, we should fight.
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