CONSCIENCE WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE ACT
SIR,—May I supplement in one respect Dr. Joad's interesting article?
Conscientious objection to war rests finally on the com- mandment : " Thou shalt not kill." This leads ..to the question as to whether a man who kills at the order of the State is or is not a murderer. For many, this point has been finally settled by Shelley's immortal answer : " Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform ; he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder." For others, the solution is less simple, and they are prepared to abide by the compromise universally sanctioned by the Church that, in a just cause, a man may, in obedience to the State, indulge in wholesale killing without committing sin
It is this, of course, which accounts for the endeavours of every belligerent nation to convince its citizens that its cause is " just," for no one in any Christian country, even today, would dare to maintain that the State has any right to compel a man to kill in an " unjust " cause.
Precisely here the " political " objector becomes involved. For he contends that the " justice " or " injustice " of a cause can be determined, in the last analysis, only by a study of the historical and political background of the war in question. (You yourself, Sir, I think—and Dr. Joad, I am sure— would be chary of maintaining, in retrospect, that the Boer War was " just " on our part ; we all know too well now the true causes and the real incentive of that episode.) And there are many of us—your correspondent J. C. Martell speaks of thousands: I should be inclined to put it at hundreds of thousands—who are by no means satisfied that our cause today is " just."
Speaking for myself, I refuse to consider this a war either of the British people (who were certainly never consulted one way or the other) or for the interests or safety of the British people. I do not accept the various propaganda interpreta- tions of Germany's " aggression." If there is any single " villain of the piece," it seems to me to be (as it has been ever since Christendom became Europe) France. From care- ful study, I am satisfied that our Blue Book is a masterpiece of suppressio veri and gives an entirely inaccurate picture of the events leading up to the war, and that at least one White Paper contains two deliberate lies.
These conclusions may, indeed, make you and your readers consider me a suitable candidate for one of the vacant places in the lunatic asylum mentioned by " Janus." But the point is, 'rather, that as I honestly hold them and believe them to be based on unassailable facts, it would be impossible for me to fight in this war. Mine, therefore, is a mere " political " objection—or would be classed as such by a tribunal. It would obviously not apply to all wars. Yet surely I am justified in claiming that it is as essentially " conscientious," in the narrowest sense, as any based on an individual and often eccentric interpretation of the Bible.—I am, &c.,
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