YOUTH AND WAR
By Dr. CHARLES E. RAVEN
THERE is one factor in the present situation which, as it seems to me, should enter into the calculations of our politicians and upon which a recluse from the world of statescraft is perhaps better qualified than they to form an opinion—I mean, of course, the attitude of the younger generation towards the business of war. Dining the past week I have been trying to explain this attitude ; and, a few sentences from one of my speeches on the subject having appeared in The Morning Post, my letter-bag has been heavily loaded with correspondence from the haunts of retired military and naval officers—. correspondence curiously different from that which used to greet similar statements of mine five years ago. Not only has the note of full-blooded denunciation and its favourite adjectives " snivelling " and " white-livered " entirely disappeared, but there is a new and rather wistful tone of insecurity as of those who realise that modern warfare is not too easily reconciled with a Christian ethic or even with enlightened common sense. If the cham- pions of the strong man armed are thus hesitant, it is hardly surprising that the clearer vision of youth has turned away from the militarist tradition.
My correspondents, however, though palpably shaken as to the obvious supremacy of, the God of Battles, are still apparently convinced that if a young man refuses to join up there must be something cranky if not cowardly about him. War is still heroism and self-sacrifice : to refuse it is to put self before country and to seek ease rather than adventure. It is precisely at this point that my experience is in flat contradiction with that of my critics. I do not dispute for a moment that pacifists like myself may well deserve such censure, that I am a cranky and timid person, selfish withal and too constantly haunted by memories of the Great War to endure the thought of a similar blood-bath. But these younger men arc emphatically not open to such criticism. They have a wholly normal satisfaction in friendship, in work and games, in exploring the world whether of thought or action. They are more frank and less sentimental than their fathers ; and if less certain that they have found the true God, at least fax less prone to make idols of the false. They have passed through the O.T.C.'s of their public schools, and are passionately devoted alike to the countryside of Britain and to the service of the victims of its industries. Yet, if I may repeat the statement which called down my .ectrespondents' reproof, nine out of ten of the physically and mentally best among them would go to prison rather than take part in another European war. They have in fact rejected modern warfare as both in itself and in its effects impossible for them.
Few of them are in the full sense pacifists : they do not appear at " Christ and Peace " meetings, and would not hesitate to use their fists against hooliganism. They would probably not favour total disarmament, nor refuse to carry and if need be fire a rifle in the wilder parts of the world. But unlike many of their seniors they realise that today war in Europe differs as widely from the futile anachronisms of their school field-days as a heavyweight championship does from a Mothers' Union tea-party ; that it is murderous in its methods and suicidal in its effects ; and that to accept it as inevitable is to capitulate to the demon-ridden mentality of the Gadarene swine. They realise that in any serious conflict the first move will be the dropping of some hundreds of thousands of incendiary bombs upon the enemy's centres of population ; that when London has been made a holocaust, the cause of humanity will not be greatly benefited if Paris or Berlin share the same fate ; that long before the infantry has got to grips, the morale of the civil population will be shattered; and that indiscriminate massacre by raiders against whom there is no effective defence is hardly more heroic than pigeon-shooting or the hunting of carted stags. They are prepared to give their lives for the saving of civilisation : they are convinced that war cannot mean anything except its destruction.
If this is their outlook upon war, it has been power- fully reinforced by the attempts of ecclesiastics and politicians to commend its case. They do not, I fear, set much store by institutional religion, but they care enough for. the Church to dislike seeing it prostituted to the embraces of the Foreign Office. They have almost lost faith in Parliamentary government : but for a moment the constructive suggestions of Sir Samuel Hoare's speech at Geneva revived a flicker of hope. We know the sequel. On that hope the National Govern- ment won its continuance in office. There followed the Hoare-Laval conversations, the White Paper, and the present crisis. Is it muddle-headedness so grotesque as to be almost imbecility : or is it a cynical disregard of moral principles and the obligations of representative government ? No doubt they underestimate the diffi- culties of leadership in the modern age : no doubt they lack experience in the mental gymnastics necessary for high place in Church or State. But when they see a Government given an unequivocal mandate to work for peace and in six months devoting itself almost solely to preparing for tear—indeed succeeding in bringing us to the brink of the precipice—it can hardly be a surprise that they refuse to give such a Government an un- restricted claim upon their lives and loyalties. Sir Samuel Hoare made an offer at Geneva : that offer was endorsed at the General Election ; it has since been sedulously ignored in favour of immediate and hectic rearmament. Until the younger men are convinced that this yolk-face was both inevitable and morally justifiable, the best of them will refuse to rearm.
The plain fact is, of course, that they recognise far more clearly than their elders the vast difference which modern Metho& of communication and the consequent develop- ment of international understanding have effected in promoting world unity. They travel in their school-days : they meet and are attracted by folks of other nations and races : they realise the folly of isolationism and resent the arrogance of empire. Their conviction of the evil of war is reinforced by an equally strong sense of the prac- ticability and worth of mutual effort towards a planned commonwealth of peoples. If some of them feel that such a result cannot be attained under the present social system, and therefore give their adhesion to Communism, others are not prepared to make their hopes dependent upon revolution. To them all it seems intolerable that this country, which ought to take the lead in developing a true internationalism, should appear to use the League of Nations merely as a device for maintaining its own exclusive rights to the largest areas of the globe. If we are convinced of the necessity of co-operation, then it is for us to implement our convictions. We cannot without hypocrisy profess desire for economic and political justice, and at the same time not only maintain our possessions but follow up our offer to confer about them by a vast pro- gramme of military preparations for their defence. Which is it to be—the scales or the sword ? The bulk of our young men sees that alternative clearly and has decided upon it.
[Dr. Raven as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, speaks mainly of the University. Next week Mr. C. R. M. Cruttwell, Principal of Hertford College, will write on Youth and War from the point of view of Oxford.]
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