CONFLICTING DESIGNS FOR PEACE _
Peace Adventure. By John Martin. (William Hodge. 7s. 6d.)
MR. MIDDLETON MURRY'S latest book is a severe discipline for any reader of endurance. He has 'a 'Singularly exasperating method of writing. All he writes is full of curiosities of style which abruptly arrest the attention and make the reader wOnder why on earth Mr. Murry chose some particular-turn of phrase. For example, Mr. Murry writes as follows: "The politics of social revolution is not democratic politics at all. It is not an intermittent politics ; it is a politics of incessant activity—a politics not of inertia, but of 'revolutionary activity.' That is a conception very difficult to make real in an integrated capitalist society."
Nov, this passage, which is -by no means untypical, may mean. nothing or very little : in which case Mr. Murry's latest per- formance would be merely silly. But that is a conclusion both indelicate and impertinent. After a second anxious effort the reader thinks he begins to detect a meaning, but it obstinately recedes as he advances_ in pursuit of it. Who in his waking moments ever heard of " an inert politics " ? If this passage has a meaning, surely it is worth conveying clearly and concisely.
Or is Mr. Murry troubled with that poetic modestY Which Mr. G. K. Chesterton ascribed to Mr. Robert Browning ? If Mr. Murry's case is worth promoting, we are bound to wonder whether he could not express himself a little more like the " mass-man " to whom he is perpetually referring. Who, by the way, is this " mass,man " ? Is he the man in the street or Mr. Middleton Murry ? His conceits of -style are so repel- lent as to do his case harm, but perhaps that need not be much regretted, for he devotes the early part of his book to denouncing Fascism and takes the rest of it to prove why Fascism should not be forcibly resisted. That is a logic which would make little appeal to the Englishman. Mr. Murry confidently pre- dicts that a German Fascist army of occupation in a Pacifist Great Britain would be completely disintegrated within a year„ and that, long-before a. year had elapsed,- the -Fascia I .
-. Germany would collapse in ignominy. The " mass-man " - might be pardoned if he were to speculate-about the grounds for Mr. Murry's asstirance- and if he'weie reluctant to 'regard the risk as worth taking. • _.
14otri byiniernalevidence we )earn that Mr. Murry's freaks. of writing are unnecessary. Irritably the reader watches seri- ' mazes begotten by his pen sprawling and crawling on all, fours without Passion and without direction. Yet from Moment to _. moment his offspring leap into significans_ ce.. _They,houncl„Fto their feet and begin joyously stamping a dataiteiftAi?! Mr. Murry is able to write : "In spitepf all it,seezastónisJi and Wonderful to me that this EutoPtan W4Lald bits rieVer bect able to let the memory of Jesus die,",:,,T4laiftistptifulk.-sintAle, . and significant sentence would digin' ri" qr.:an kai- bithop. He has one excellent, brief and pithy_ passage, in which he tersely examines and ;thbral. superiority assumed by the Englishman and the :Pi little later the effect-is spoiled by an apparent .laps t&Itte •delUsion that territorial expansion by Germany and fitay at the expensW the British Empire Would relieve thfiui econoznie problatti.
Can it really be that Mr. Murry is-tat iiiXed'cif etorkimic _ _ facts of the pre-War German Empire? One of his Maim con- tentions is that the Labour Party is not fundamentally different from the National Government. He believes that the only revolutionary thing left for Socialists to do is to practise Pacifism. Such is the burden of what an unkind critic would . describe as an egocentric- credo. '
Mr. Murry offers two Parables whose short ainiplicity, helps us to forget the strain involved in translating into normal : language his luxuriant, turgid and fulsome periods. - The ;. one relates to Mr. Murry's neighbour, a poultry-farmer, who says, "I think people are beginning to realise it's no use fighting this Fascism. If they want our country, then we must let them have it : and leave it to them to find out what • they can do with it when they've got it." And the other tells of a typical agricultural labourer, who declares, "If := - they want me for another war, they will have to come and f: . fetch me." But does he .really, know how_..thee, types or tte earnest young Pacifists would react to an attack from abroad ? One out of ten might respond to the vulgarities of beating drums and of the sex appeal radiated by a uniform. The other nine, with perhaps one exception, would rush to share with their fellows a nasty but a novel job.
A direct answer to Mr. Murry is to be_ found: in Mr. John Mat:tit:1'A book when he writes : "Many of us may behold blazing towns, shattered homesteads, women and children mutilated and slain, and many more will receive tidings of these things before any personal decision to fight or not to fight can become operative. Have the leaders of the war-resistance movement really taken 'into account the effect of such .events on the minds of many of their younger and possibly most enthusiastic supporters ? "
This book of Mr. Martin's is both a relief and a :contrast.
He shirks no issue, not even the most difficult the religious dilemma. He does not allow himself to he -raided into Pacifism. By this cacophonous word, so often „used loosely as a term of eulogy or of abuse, we mean the repudiation of force coupled with a belief in nnilateral disarmament It is high time for us all to recognise that this doctrine, whatever its merits might be, i -wolves a flat betrayal" of the central principle of the Coveiunt of the League of Nations. There will be many who will dispute. Mr. Martin's conclusions. But, while he writes simply and attractively, he respects his readers sufficiently to work out his probleras'in detail; Surely he is right in regarding unrestricted and'competing national sovereignties as a principal cause of our troubles. He describes realistically the dark international. outlook; and examines fairly and dispassionately the possibility of securing appeasement by 'means of an International Police Force. But let us be under no delusion that it is open to us easily to bridge a gap between two conflicting sections -of the Peace Movement. The issue lies between the movement Which opposes the use of force and the movement for Law and Order between the nations. The champions of the second have to- combat the advocates of the first no less strongly than they are engaged against the supporters of armed isolation. Let Mr. Martin write again and write often, with the. same degree of vision and realism.
VYYYAN ADAMS.
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