The Economics of War.
BY E. C. FAIRCHILD.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF WAR?
The Great War has convinced the peoples of Europe and America that a recurrence of the struggle must result in the destruction of the white race. Millions of men, physically the best, have died on battlefields, since Austria and Serbia went to war; millions more are unfitted by wounds or nervous disorder, to carry on the work of the race and raise its standard of physical capacity. The races of Africa are armed by civilised Governments, for participation in wars between nations that have done nothing for the black man, except exploit his labour and steal his land. He has a long account to settle. His masters, for their own ends, instructed him in the business of war! He may learn the lesson too well. He may yet take reparation for the crimes of slavery, and the tortures organised by European agents in the French and Belgian Congo. Though millions are gone and millions more are worthless as carriers of the race, and though the black man is organised to menace the white, science, proclaimed as the saviour of mankind, adds strength to the forces of destruction. What madness1s this that seizes civilised men, compelling them to devote genius and labour to the fabrication of means for human suicide?
"Why do men make war?" asked a German wife in a letter found on the body of her dead soldier husband. On the reply to that question, to be given by the peoples of France, Germany, Russia, America and Britain, depends the life and the future of all mankind. An endeavour to preserve peace without removing the cause of war is bound to fail. Disarmament cannot be achieved while motives are in operation that drive nations to scatter their resources in war. Neither is it likely that wars will cease because an appeal is made to the "heart" of man. Indeed, there is much in the mind or "heart" of man that finds satisfaction in the tinsel
