THE FRIENDS' MANIFESTO ON THE WAR.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Sra,—In view of a repeated application to give the publical of the pulpit to the "Plea for a Peaceable Spirit" put forth by the Society of-Friends, I should like to ask these excellent persons how they propose to early on their large trading and commercial undertakings without the protection of the Army and Navy they propose to do away with? Do they imagine that foreign nations would take no advantage of their child- like confidence ? Do they suppose that these also will be persuaded to disband their Army and Navy in order to please the party of "peace at any price " ? The Society of Friends has not, I believe, as yet proposed to put down our police force and leave uri to the mercy of the aggressor. But we cannot expect visionaries to be logical. It will require some- thing more than Mr. Hodgkin's repetition of "the well-known tenet of Friends" to convince us that in an imperfect world it may safely be adopted. "This doctrine of Friends is independent of" some other considerations besides "the justice of any particular war." "The greater the justice of this war" is a dangerous admission. It seems to recall Lord Mansfield's saying : "The greater the truth, the greater the libel." I hope I may number myself among. "those who hold the Quaker ideal," but I hold it an ideal not yet capable of being realised. The time is not yet come. It is not easy to understand what is meant by calling war "inconclusive." The term might be applied with more propriety to the absence of anything like argument in your correspondent's letter. I am glad to learn from Mr. Neild's letter that there was "one voice "—it is a pity it was only one—raised in the interest of common-sense. One man's voice may sometimes redeem a meeting from utter fatuousness.—I am, Sir, &c., G. J. C. B.
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