[To the' Editor of Tan SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—Your readers have been given answers from distin- guished writers to the question, " What is worth fighting for ? Perhaps others besides myself have been' waiting for an article considering:the much more vital question behind that one--- " Is fighting ever worth while Y " •
It is very curious that this question is so rarely asked, or, to put it in another form, " Does fighting benefit the cause for which it is undertaken " The. Christian Pacifist ponders, first, the nature of fighting. He sees that it means the studied preparation of the greatest tortures which the gifts of science can provide, for infliction on his brother-man, and is convinced that the use of such means is death to the spiritual nature of the user. 'He is not-so much concerned about the fact of being killedthe sacrifice which is always so emphasised by the advaetite of war—as with the fact of the killing, the torturing, the refinements of cruelty thought out by the makers of war on both sides under the flimsy excuse of " defence." The soul cannot be protected by such devil's work, even if some bodies shotikl hapPen to be,' at 'the expense of fellow-men.
The Pacifist disbelieves, further, that any aims worth having ire-attained by fighting. - As I must be brief, it may sufffee to -call to mind the supposed aims of the War of 1914-18, whieti Were the laudable 'ones of making the world safe for democracy and to* end war. If anyone can trace either result from what' actually happened he must be very clever, for we see denriieracy dying in country after country; and war pre- parations on a more feverish scale than ever before. Finally, the Pacifist doctrine can hardly be put more pungently or concisely than by George Lansbury - in Tuesday's Times, " Force Settlei nothing, only truth endureS."—Yours truly,-
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