THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 17 
arbitrator. So with nations. If all were raised to the same 
plane of civilization and the same standard of moral right, 
that we are thankful the British nation has attained to, war 
would no longer be needed, and would soon become only a mem- 
ory. But, alas, such is not the case. Without any spirit of 
boastfulness we may safely say that the number of those na- 
tions which compare favorably with our own is very small. The 
others are struggling upwards from yarious depths of national 
and social darkness. The British nation would not enter upon 
war at the present time from any wrong or unworthy motive, 
but only in defence of the right and from dire necessity. Not 
so, however, with those nations where the national conscience is 
not so true, so noble, so generous. All the world knows that 
Russia had no moral right to instigate the present war with 
Japan. The motive, that of territorial aggrandizement, at the 
expense of a supposedly weak neighbor, was an unworthy one, 
and entirely unjustifiable. The conscience of Russia is evidently 
on a par with that of the bully who depends upon his size and 
brutal appearance to frighten his victim into submission ; and 
in ease this fails his animal ferocity bears him on perhaps to de- 
feat. When men shall rise to the level of the Golden Rule, strife 
shall cease. When the message of the angels hovering over 
Bethlehem’s plains shall become the spirit of the nations, then 
swords may be beaten into plow-shares, and spears into 
pruning-hooks, the instruments of war being transformed into 
the implements of peace. 
But what says History as to war’s necessity? It also 
answers yea and nay. Many of the great wars—notably those of 
Alexander and Napoleon—appear to have been simple wars of 
conquest, having no basis of right and seeking none. Waged 
because these great generals wanted exercise for their remark- 
able genius for war. Not caring for right or wrong, not con- 
sidering at all the miseries they brought to their own armies as 
well as to the vanquished foe, they seemed to be actuated only 
by a selfish desire to revel in the intoxication of their own suc- 
cess. Such wars to outward appearance bring only hatred and 
distrust of our fellow-men, empoverish the nations concerned ; 
