Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/175

, the denial of peace, is running riot. Those returned soldiers, with all their pacifist sentiment, find themselves like the rest of humanity caught in a wheel. Jean the Frenchman does not want any more war. But the North lies devastated; until the fields of the Somme are bearing again, the chimneys of Picardy smoking, his shop will never do good business. Hans the miner of the Ruhr district got out his army Mauser last year and tried to shoot a reactionary officer in order to show that he wanted no more war. But Hans believes that the indemnity which France wants is excessive; he knows that if Germany pays it, he himself will have lower wages and higher taxes all his life. So Jean and Hans put their interests into the hands of the strong men of Europe—men with the old ideas, men whose conception of statesmanship is force unlimited. “His only scheme of politics,” said an American diplomat of an eminent European confrére, “is ‘send a division.’”

The pacifism of the returned European soldier, of the disgusted but submerged European civilian, is a somewhat abnormal state of mind. It resembles a little the psychology of a religious revival. Not even the most enthusiastic revivalist expects that his people will maintain permanently all those heights of fervor and virtue to which he has raised them. The wise church is the one which consolidates its gains; makes the revival or mission yield permanent fruit in sober, day-by-day piety,