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"Peace News has compiled an exemplary record... its tasks have never been more critically important than they are today." Noam Chomsky
We reprint Peace News front page 15 September 1939. A pacifist socialist response to the outbreak of war:
Is it yet too late to prevent a futile slaughter?
I claim that the most effective contribution which Britain can make to world peace at this juncture is a declaration to end its own imperialism and to sacrifice its monopoly powers.
Thus should we convince the victims of Fascist tyranny of our sincerity and win their co-operation for the ending of Fascism.
...This country is entering upon war without ideals and without vision. Imperialism is to remain, and thus power politics.
And what is this imperialism for which the British and French people are being asked to make such a stupendous sacrifice? At root it is the financial power of the vested interests, which latter, in the main, are the inheritance of a privileged minority who today, as of centuries, have ruled this country, despite our boast of democracy.
That financial power is the cause of poverty and chronic unemployment, and when the war is over, it will assert itself as Fascism, should unemployment and social unrest become pronounced.

