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AT no time in history has the danger of war been more fully present to the popular consciousness than at the present. - The average Englishnlall is not only gravely, but more or legs continuously, alarmed. Ile knows that another war is being "visibly prepared, and he knows with what weapons it is likely to be waged. The conquest of the air has abolished the English Channel, and there is, the statesmen tell him, no escape_ from the bomber and no defence against gas. Inevitably war easts its rum oars and alarms before it. Titus within- the .' last week I have solemnly been assured on the " best informa- tion" that Germany is bound to fight "either this July or next." This attitude of tense contemporary expectation • forms a curious contrast with the happy insouciance of 1914, when, as the Doningtons point out, people lived in " a world . . almost nearer to the feudal landscape than to that' of (our) own age." And since none of us want war, we cannot help asking ourselves the Doningtons' question: "Is there, anything that the man in the street can do to help in stamping out this hideous anachronism, this grotesque and scarcely •
credible nightmare, 1Var " •-•
The Doniagtons.' book is an attempt to answer this quest iop, 7' an attempt which, starting with an account of the war- - resisters' movement in the last war, considers the possibiliiies -of the organisation of mass resistance in the next, glances in' passing at the weapon of the general strike, examines exhatis-
• -tively the collective security system and endeavours to assess its value and to estimate its prospects as a method of ensuring . the world's peace. and, finally, in the light of the preceding r_ survey, comes back to the original question : " What can ire do to help get this straight ? "
-he literature of pacifism is by now immense ; Pacifism, in . . . -calculating the consequences of his acts, he is apt to " pUpie objectors took their stand on the sanctity of human life; but what in retrospect it appear; they really meant 'was the inviolability of human personality. it was not so nineh
evil, but the compelling of B to take it.
As the Doningtons acutely remark, the difference is; im-
` those who would and those who would not support sanctions in the interests of world peace against an aggressor State.•
e
of Puccini's letters, which have little of the man of the -world - began ? There are, broadly speaking, two ways by mean; -_ •
Is Pacifism Enough ? • portant, because it foreshadows the later cleavage between Upon this the direct iriethod, the marlin's' verdict is unegni- - vocal. Achieving " a certain spiritual victory in defence of liberal principles," the conscientious objectors' movement 'Was irrelevant to the course of the War itself. Nor can thry see any " real chance for war-resistance in present conditiOns.-" 'This is not to belittle the method. There will always be some, and there is evidence that their number is growing. vvlu will put up with anything rather than obey the command to dismember, blind, burn, poison and mutilate their fellow- men, and totally deny the State's right to give such a command. But their refusal must for the present. be regarded as an .• affirmation of personal rights rather than as a strategy for war prevention. As an ideal of individual conduct, it is to be taken with the utmost seriousness ; but it is not serious politics. And so the authors turn to the indirect method-- the method of guaranteeing peace by mobilising the over- whelming force of the civilised world against the aggrniisor. Perhaps the most impressive part of the book is the examina- tion of the case for and against collective security. The - Doningtons admit the justice of most of what can be said against the League. Its beginnings are " ridiculous: and _ ineffectual " ; but so were those of the British- Parlianieilt. It may, it is said, be unwise to give it further powers befare it is fit to use them ; but, they reply, until it has the poWers, it never will be fit. Faulty as it is, the system of collective ;security is our only hope, and we must make shift to de, .t:he best we can with it. And so we conic to the conelusiim of the book. z' We have, in these chapters, tried very seriffiu- lously to discover any workable alternative. We have hot - found-one that coultt_ sand rip to an lierieSt .-scrutiny," Is this a -conclusion worth fighting. for ? The authors answer
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