PACIFIST PROBLEMS Would I Fight ? Edited by Keith Bryant
and Lyall Wilkes. (Basil Blackwell. 5s.)
Tins book, written by an Oxford eleven on the contemporary problem of pacifism, claims to mirror the views of some thousands of men and women. Those who are familiar with the claims of " the Brummagen men " in the middle nineteenth century will remember that they made a similar claim so true that Disraeli was able to show that the thousands were too large to be ignored but sufficiently small to be an oligardiy.
For all that, and for all that each contributor answers the question, " Would I fight ? " from his own factious point of view, it is not unlikely that some of the arguments used and conclusions reached are those not of thousands but of millions. That, of course, does not help us to judge of their efficacy. If law were the product of the General Will and of number, then we should be impressed by the thousands, but since law is the product of reason,we are left with the problem of pacifism to be solved by the processes of reason.
The mark of most of the essays is they do not care for such an approach. Recoiling from the emotional cant of the Blimps, and from romantic descriptions of war, they remain emotionally and romantically disposed to abhor war, even if some of them are prepared for certain reasons to, fight. Those reasons or excuses form perhaps the most interesting part of the book. One man is willing to fight for Democracy and Justice against. Fascism and Dictatorship ; another for the class war ; another. for " coloured peoples " ; another for the League Covenant ; and two or three for their country. Some refuse to fight for any cause.
All are disposed towards the problem by the action of sympathy. Whether there exists any dogmatic body of teaching on the matter seems to escape their attention. And- yet many of the questions they put have an answer in this dogmatic teaching. The theoretically " just war " of tradition envisaged an offence against the wholeness of a more or less unified society by a power ill-disposed and irritant. The theory of a just war rests on the community principle. The absolute pacifist denies the right of a community to resist a breach by force, but the non-pacifist does not see that as things are there is no community to be breached.
The Marxist contribution has, therefore, a peculiar merit. He who is known as James Forster realises the point of estab- lishing a world collectivity. If ever this naturalistic universalism were established it would doubtless abolish war, but it would make war impossible because all human powers would be euthanised. The diagnosis which he makes is subject to the general criticism of the usual Marxist diagnosis, namely, that while it has some valuable things to say about the economic struggle, its account of Man is radically false. Forster, like many another English Communist, is really a Clarendon Tory on the spree, and much of his militancy has no relation with his assumed Marxisin. Just as he would die for his patria, so _would one of the Tory men. There is one difficulty, however, which lie and others see, a difficulty of which Sir Francis Burdett was sensitively aware in the days of the Luddites and the Six Acts. " If you wish for energy and exertion, you must not be out of love with democracy. If you want virtue you must give it motives. If you want patriotism, you must afford a patria." _ Where is that patria? Where is that international society .whose unit is the patria ? If they can be found, and if the sword of Caesar be wielded not in vain since it rests on much more than some secular consent, then men may fight. But then war will be utterly unlike contemporary war in its subject matter, and it is this very, subject matter of contemporary warfare which arouses the disgust of good men.
The essay contributed by Christopher Cadogan deserves special notice. He has met the Marxist position with good effect, and his work helps to justify the whole book, which is a timely arrival and a valuable help to those who study to under- stand that life " which takes away the occasion of war."
H. W. J. EDWARDS.
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