SPIRITUAL VALUES AND THE WAR
Sta,—Your correspondent Mr. Wolseley D. Maundrell deplores the view that we are fighting the German people. In his letter he offers no word of sympathy to the women and children, nor the hospital ship victims of the German air force. Nor to the "U " boat victims, unarmed sailors of neutral countries left on rafts in the North Sea. No word of praise does he give to the courage of our forces by land, sea and air.
Surely there is spiritual value in sympathy for the victim, even when it leads to honest indignation against the murderer. Surely there is spiritual value in the high courage of our men. To me there is, and I am not alone.
It seems. to me a maudlin sentimentality that refuses to recog- nise plain fact. The German was the aggressor in 1914, and again in 1940. The leaders could not have led with such cruelty unless great numbers of their people were in agreement with them. The Germans are human beings like the rest of us, but for centuries their philosophy has preached the right of the strong against the weak. Hitlerism is not new. In this respect the American G. Santayana's book, German Philosophy as Egotism, is a valuable contribution to the understanding of German thought.
It is tragic that German youths should be taught to regard man as the best beast of prey. We shall not cure them by sympathy.
As to Christianity. If our Lord said we were to love our enemies, He also showed an uncompromising and complete hostility towards the spiritual values of His own enemies. He called them sons of Satan, and a stiff-necked generation of vipers. He did not say they were dear good fellows after all.
I feel the English sense of fair play is better expressed in sympathy for the victim than in excuses for those who bomb the wounded and fight foul. We should not behave ill as they, but to express good feeling for them, until they turn from these ways, is to be callous to the sufferings of their victims. Fifth columnists I cannot call the sentimentalists, but sixth column I believe them to be unwittingly. For in their way they undermine, without intention, all England has long held dear of freedom and fair play. To compromise with German spiritual values is to en- danger our own. The Hitler Youth will be ready years hence for another war unless we are careful.—Yours faithfully,
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