CIVILIZATION AND WAR by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 15, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 49.

CIVILIZATION AND WAR.

By Editor

WHEN so many, among them professed ministers of the gospel of peace, are talking of the present war preparations among the great nations of earth, as evidences of high civilization, the following, from a popular writer and critic, Ambrose Bierce, will be refreshing to the right-minded man:—

The Chinese in China may err in matters religious and dietetic, but they are not altogether devoid of judgment in certain other affairs. In a Victorian telegram published in this paper yesterday was an extract from an editorial in the esteemed Chung-Hei-Yet-Pao, of Canton. It began as follows:—

Li Hung Chang is very strongly of the opinion that it would be advisable for Chinese troops to be led into action by European officers, as the latter, owing to their barbarity and savage dispositions, and from the fact that their nations live by war, are better fitted for the battle field than a more enlightened and civilized race.

Doubtless Li Hung Chang, in his blindness, is addicted to the sin of bowing down to wood and stone; and doubtless for him the pleasures of the table would be incomplete without boiled rat; it is not contended that either his deity or his dinner is fit to be served. Quite the same, he is full of light. His estimate of European character is just and accurate. Nations that devote the larger part of their revenues to maintenance of professional and expert killers of men, and to perfection of appliances for taking life, are in disposition barbarous and savage in the worst sense of the words. Skill in the science and practice of slaughter is not an attribute of any civilization worthy of the name, nor is popular homage to those so skilled consistent with possession of public virtues and high intelligence. Li Hung Chang's estimate of the civilization of his own countrymen is possibly erroneous. Absence of the military spirit, feebleness in war, and contempt of the man-killing trade, are not in themselves proof of general enlightenment; but, assuredly, general enlightenment is neither proved by nor compatible with the brutal bloodthirst to which Christian peoples owe their tremendous armaments, frequent wars, and imposing public debts. The famous Chinese viceroy is said to have been stripped of his official yellow jacket, but, clearly enough, he retains his thinking cap, and wears it on his head as level as the salt, salt sea.