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Menace from Mars.

When everybody is talking fight, the immediate prospect is probably one of peace. But accidents will happen; and war is the king of accident that seems to happen most surely when it is most prepared against. Current preparations are furnishing all the materials required for a first-class accident. The time is very appropriate, therefore, for an effort to be made towards putting an end to the dirty sport of smashing drilling, stabbing, poisoning, suffocating, and blowing to bits the soul-cases of fellow-beings who have committed no greater crime then to be born somewhere else; and the anti-war enthusiasm recently generated in this College decrees the heartiest commendation for its desire to have the brutal activity struck out of humanity's list of social engagements.

The movement is undoubtedly whole-souled, and is no fount single-hearted as well. Some of its impulse seems, however, on a superficial view, to come from worshippers of that apotheosis of [unclear: boro economicus] known as Communism which is doing not a little prompting behind the scenes of our crazy social comedy. If the Anti-War Movement derives its inspiration from this quarter—which is not less credible than that the maintenance of war is board up with Capitalism—there is room for misgivings. It is not so much that the movement might be made a catspaw for Communism. We are used to discharging such an office for Capitalism which is (to many who are not Communists) as detestable a condition as Communism. Any help that anybody whatever can give to [unclear: stop] the practice of converting fellow—beings into fertiliser is not to be sniffed at merely because there is a Russian in [unclear: for woodpile]. The pity is rather that any suspicion of axe-grinding in the special interests of the U.S.S.R. is likely to lessch the effectiveness of the movement by earning it the cold shoulder from potential cannon-fodder who, for whatever reason, prefer the devil they know to the devil they merely read about in the newspapers.

No serious objection can be taken to the movement on the ground that war may not break out before the period of the annual examinations. It might break out after, which would be worse. Nor can any serious objection be based on the fact that the movement, so far as it is audible to the V.U.C. student, is cloistered in a remote University College. Even if it were so restricted (which is not the case), a start must be made somewhere and somehow; and if one University student (as at Serajevo) could star a European war, there is no telling what two or three possessed of an equivalent seal could not set off in an opposite direction. Justifications exist in plenty. Some are generous, such as the desire to see mankind freed of a cruel, inhuman burden. Others, such as the objection to dying like a dog in the gutter or a student in the middle of a bursary), are not at all reprehensible for being purely personal. But the only justification that can hope to be effective is the existence of a strong anti-war sentiment among a large number of people. In few reforms is mass feeling of such prime importance. An anti-war movement hamstrings itself if it allows any character to be affixed to it other or beyond that of a simple determination to abolish war. If it makes a stand on the postulate that war cannot be abolished except by fundamentally altering the social system, then it loses its clear-cut appeal to the host of Dumdrudges who are ready to pull their weight for the sake of saving their own skins but have no social vision beyond: and it may develop into an "ism" of some sort or another masquerading under a single item of its programme. To be sure, this would not necessarily condemn the movement on any ground other this would not necessarily condemn the movement on any grounds other than that of effectiveness under existing conditions; but effectiveness under existing conditions is the whole point.

An inclination to get down to fundamentals is not fault in the student mind. The abolition of war is however, a concern of many types of mind, among which [unclear: unani as] to fundamentals is too much to expect. The immediate practical problem is to make it possible for solution of the problem cannot be hung up until the world is converted to belief in some economic or political cure-all. There are difficulties enough without complicating the issue, it is a poor war that cannot be made to seem just; it is an unusual generation of youngsters that can resist the prospect of new experiences such as war offers: it is a wonderful enthusiasm that can be maintained in spite of failure to secure immediate and gratifying results; and the work to be done is tremendous. The position with which the Anti-War Movement has to deal is simply and suggestively stated by Prof. Chartier ("Alain") in his book "Mars, or the Truth about Wars" If the mass of citizens does not exercise a continual pressure, unswervingly directed against all preparations for war and against the very idea of war, war will come about of itself."

P.J.S.

11.59 p.m. Monday— Editors Join Strike