The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1915-12-30
ON ARMING FOR DEFENCE
A Well known Manchester Writer
Di@courses Interestingly

Gdiiof 81 lhF 9WufNats
This morning me. lady returning
some recently purchased stockings "a
a shop because she had found that
they were Of German manufacture
While waiting for the noorwalker she
told me positively and passionately
that the Germans had desired and
brought on this war, no one else being
In the least TO blame. She said that
we must arm at once, or We would
have the Germans over here, intent
upon numbering our babies.
OF course, she added, we all wanted
peace. But we must arm for defence.
For the thousandth lime during the
past eighteen months | asked myself
what | meant, what governments
meant, and what history meant, by
defensive war.
Who, for example, | asked myself,
is waging a strictly defensive war in
the presen. struggle ? Belgium apart,
has not every nation attacked or in
yaded some other nation? Perhaps il
was largely done for motives Of de-
fence but what, then Of the inhabi
tants of the invaded country? Surely
they are defacto defending themselves! !!
And then | pleased myself, with some
what dreary make believe. by think
ing what some Of the governments Of
Europe might have done. Suppose
Russia" said to myself, "had sent
troops TO help Serbia, instead Of ESQ
disastrously) invading East Prussia
and Galicia. What if France and
England had not attacked the Darden-
elles? What, above all, if Austria
had contented herself with drastic
measures against Pan Slavic agitation
within the Empire ?"
To carry the question nearer home,
1 asked myself, by what sort Of war
fare We proposed last summer %
ayenge the Lusitania !? Was it by
sending "a couple of million troops
across the ocean, or standing armed at
our own gates?
"But that would be no war at all!'
everybody exclaims at once. The ex-
precision is apt. Ii conveys in one
word the fac: that present-day society
does not regard defensive war as an
actually: and that if it were reeog-
nized as a rule Of conduct, it would be
but another name for immutable
peace.
ITO defend yourself" everybody
joins in explaining, you must attack
the enemy, take him unawares, divert
his forces, weaken his powers" etc.
Whereat the amiable fcticn Of de-
fensive war, already desperately top
ping, falls to the ground, the sawdust
running out of it in streams.
And yet find obstinately persisting
in my own and other minds, some con-
cept which We instinctively call "de
fence" however far-fung an invading
attack it may involve. Let US pursue,
catch ard examine the elusive notion
IL we can. What is il? What do we
mean?
think .he groundwork of our con-
ception is that a nation would be es-
sentially on the defensive If it had not
desired or provoked war. Or, let us
say, il would be on the defensive if it
had gone into war because of the {
anbearably bad conduct of :he enemy
IL would be on the defensive, in short,
If IL were the innocent party.
To clarity and render more flexible
this idea--to exercise it li.tle-let ]
is fancy, for change, that our nation !
might be the aggressor, and the en- |
einy the innocent party. The enemy,
thereupon, bombarding New York,
would be waging defensive warfare. !
But here we seem to come up against I
a sor. of blankness in the imagination.
We find in our minds a passive, but I
resistance to this idea. Our \
inaginations discover an indomitable @
instinct for believing that our own Y
country. in the nature Of things, would =
iaeviial ly be he innocent party. 1T i
Is unthinkable," | read to-day In the S
New York Tribune, ''unthinkable that
we should ever engage in an UNJUST r
fable war" G
Nothing was ever truer. Even with r
the Mexican war, and certain shady o
transactions with the Indians, more or e
less clearly in our minds, we do find il il
II
But point we fail TO consider is C
that citizens Of other countries also p
find it unthinkable tina. their revered s.
should ever engage in an
war. We forget this fact v
even while We read Professor Mum o
sierburg and behold copies Of The p
Fatheriand for sale on our. news e
stands. We are obllyious 10 the phe- a
our fellow-Americans Of c.