AGAINST MILITARISM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1409, 9 April 1912, Page 5

AGAINST MILITARISM.

RESOLUTIONS BY SOCIALISTS. At the New Zealand Socialist party's conference yesterday, the following resolutions were carried unanimously:— "This conference declares itself uncompromisingly hostile to all forms of militarism, recognising that whilst tho present class State exists the armed forces, will be used to buttress up capitalism, and to hold down tho workers. The conference further recognises that all the energies of tho working class can be most profitably utilised in building up their industrial and political organisations, which shall finally Tender war impossible, and which organisations by international affiliation and alliances _ between the working classes of all nations are at present the chief guarantee of the peace of tho world." "This conference proclaims its sincere sympathy with those youths and young men, who, denying tho rights of the State to force them into military service, -have resisted the encroachment upon their liberties, and in consequence have suffered fine or imprisonment. This conference also declares that the so-called New Zealand Defence Act is not truly such, that it is not in tho interests of peace, but tends towards war, in that, being designed with a view to the coordination of the military forces of the Dominion with those of tho Mother Country in aggressivo as well as offensive warfare, it will be considered by the peoples as a threat and a menace to them, and load to reprisals. That the enormous costs that would be entailed by carrying out the present proposals is more than can be borne by this community, and must place extra burdens on the workers. This conference further declares that no such extraordinary measures as aro embodied in the compulsory clauses are necessary in this Dominion, and it calls for the immediate repeal of tho Act."