The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-18
WASTEFUL WAR.

crime.
WASTEF'UL WAR.
Only the other day at San Francisco,
a banker of the first rank said to a
legislative committee of inquiry that he
attributed the panic and the hard times
to the prosecution and results of the
Spanish American and the Russo :
japanese wars. If he was right, then
it was surely economic laundering to
wage either of them, the injury to the
world being vastly greater than the
amount of good done anybody.
We have said that scholars, magis-
trates and captains of industry are, as
classes. opposed to war Add to these
the philosophers, and they will say as
did Arago "that time must come
when the science of destruction shall
bend before the arts of peace; when
the genius which multiplies our pow
ers, which creates new products, which
diffuses comfort and happiness among
the great mass of the people, shall oc-
cupy in the general estimation of man
kind that rank which reason and com
nonsense now assign to it, Summon
whom you may, save those that make a
business of war or thrive on it's politics,
anu III pIVfpI tIOu lHIiI tuithIS
been fine and their education thorough,
they will declare for the sovereignty of
peace Our wars are made for US by
strong, ambitious and selfish men who
represent the State, acting upon the
thoughtIess zeal of half educated
masses or the young and upon the brute
passions of the ignorant. These multi
tudes must be educated so that govern
ments and the governing classes may be
civilized. Shall we not in universal
Christian education find the key to this
dark problem that began with Cain?
1t is the only way. Out of society,
rightly taught, a law of arbitration
would spring as naturally as flower
or blade of grass starts from fertile
soil. What The Hague may not do to-
day or tomorrow, with it's ruling spirits
chosen, from among generals and ad-
mirals and politicians, we may sadly
guess; but we know what The Hague
will do when, for every fort are ten
thousand school houses; when for every
bayonet is a library; when for every
medal of war is a sheaf of scholarly
degrees and when, outclamoring the
tumult of battle is the thunder of a
million presses, tireless servitors of
peace. There will be a new patriotism
then; not one of flags and drums and
epitaphs, but patriotism of public
service and civic pride. of learning and
the arts, a patriotism which teaches
men to live for their country, rather
than to die for it; and when that time
comes the era -war-if | may para
phrase Edmund Burke-will be like the
ghost of the dead moon that dimly
haunts the morning sky after the sun
has risen.
What people shall lead in this work
Of arbitration We may hope that the
honor may fall TO our own; but the
race is great enough to
follow if mightier civilizer shall rise
and show the way. Still that race is
not without its peaceful laurels
years ago there were over
eighty military posts and forts on both
sides of the thousand mile line then ex
listing between the United States and
Canada. At Niagara were 5000 Ameri-
can troops and for some years past war
ships had been building in American
and Canadian yards. War threatened,
but our forefathers were wise enough to
make a treaty which practically dis
armed the lakes and kept them So
a generation later we had boundary
dispute with Great Britain in the Pa
rific Northwest, which promised to end
IN war but which yielded to negotia-
ton; and at the close of the Civil War.
the two Anglo-Saxon States. civilized
by the educated opinion of their people,
left their new feud to the Geneva tri-
ounal of peace. We Americans should
have arbitrated with Spain, but there is
where our civilization lost its grip; vet
t Is something in atonement that ten
years after the battle of Manila bav
We find our government at work upon
IN arbitration treaty with Japan to es-
ablish, as between the only probable
7eliigerents here, the peace of the Pa