[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In his article on
"Why I believe in War," in your issue of December 30th, Major Yeats-Brown writes, "I do not see how it (war) can be abolished from human society unless human nature is altered." Fortunately the abolition of war is not dependent on a change in human nature, whose possibility, no one knows. It is dependent on a change hi human conduct, whose possibility every one knows. Human history is one long record of changes in human conduct.
History tells us that man has successively pushed war out of the family, the tribe, the province, the nation, and has established in succession family, tribal, provincial and national law. Man is now busy pushing war out of the world and establishing in its place world-wide law. In this he has made such progress during the past twelve years that, when the recent Anglo-Persian dispute suddenly arose, both we and Persia turned automatically and instantly to the legal and arbitral machinery of the League of Nations, confident that it would work smoothly and produce an equitable result.—!
Previous page
