THE DEFEATISTS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sta,—May I reply to Mr. Capper-Johnson? My reference to the Society of Friends was not offensive either in tone or intention: my reference to views held " passively " was motived by the fact that many members of the Society of Friends assisted in the prosecution of war by driving ambu- lances ; moreover, the society has not recently made an active stand against the infliction of the death penalty, though as recently as February loth last a boy of nineteen was hanged for murder.
I am aware of the Friends' interpretation of the Gospels: I am aware also that it has been and is rejected by the vast majority of Christians and by all Christian charities. In the words of the late Edward Grubb (We Did Not Fight, 1935, p. 152), " no part of the Christian Church has yet reached a satisfactory philosophy of the relations between the laws of the State and what Christians regard as the higher law of God. There are no generally accepted principles that we can apply to the question whether, and under what conditions, a law of the State can rightly be disobeyed."
In the words of Dr. G. P. Gooch (Politics and Morals, 1935, p. 22), " The private citizen may prefer to surrender his life rather than his faith. . . . A State cannot and must not make such a sacrifice, for it is the trustee of generations to come. . . . The supreme obligation of a State to survive may involve decisions which an individual might feel bound on ethical grounds to reject . . . the action of a Government within certain limits is determined by considerations of what we may call a biological rather than a moral order."
These are weighty authorities. I commend them to your readers.—Your obedient servant, ARNOLD WILSON.
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