CONSCRIPTION OR GERMAN DOMINATION.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2648, 20 December 1915, Page 6

CONSCRIPTION OR GERMAN DOMINATION.

, , Sir,—Aro we, as an Empire, prepared , to leave the menace of domination to chance, artel risk it, or are . we, by con- ', scription, to make a certainty that the' • British Empire, which our forefathers i won for us, shall remain in our posses- >• sion for all time. This is the only important question. Any side-issues with , regard to conscription not being constii tutional are irrelevant. There is only one main issue. What sort' of constitution would be our lot under German j dominance? If you read the war'news, the Germans hitherto hold their own in the West. They have won victories, • they, have annexed provinces on the • Russian front, and have been victorious iii Serbia, We'.havo 1 always followed the policy of sending driblets to i. /strategical points. What is the invarii- able answer? That sufficient forces '• were not available. . And why? Be- '• cause our Empire politicians are too timid to look facts in tho face, and enforce conscription, some probably i. thinking more of votes than of the Empire. a First, we sent a driblet of IOOjOOO to France, I believe 50,000 or so fought at Mons, to bo slaughtered,, although they fought magnificently. !, Why? Because more men wero not !• available, because there was no con3, scription. Second : AYo sent another driblet of 8000 marines to Antwerp, resulting in 2000. or 3000 being interned. Why? Because no other forces were availablo. If conscription had i 6 been in force ample men would have 10 been available. We sent another l S 150,000 or so to Gallipoli _ to fight a r force of over half'a million. Why? i S The answer is tho only force available, because conscription was not in force. •" Now, I come to probably one of the most important considerations —the strategical theatre of the war—Serbia j* is on the flank of Austria, and from all *° reports tho country is not strongly forc tified on that flank, and I think I am jj right! in saying that wo missed one of the greatest strategical chances of the •C war. Germany advertised to the whole world months ago that'she was going to J' attack Serbia, so that we had adequate warning; but wo had to leave Serbia to j. be sacrificed as Belgium was sacrificed, because sufficient troops wero not avails able, and bccause conscription had not been enforced. It may be alleged that n _ tlio equipment was not sufficient, but I j" maintain that equipment would have m accompanied conscription if our timid ] 0 politicians had grappled with it at the IV outset, and had not 1 delayed, and put e _ it off until it is almost too late. If ls they had grappled with it at the first n _ outbreak", she should havo been able to ry have reaped the advantage of our strategical opportunities; and I malntain, Sir, that if. wo had had conscripuj tion, or call it by a 1 less drastic word, r universal servico, even if equipment fell , r j shortj we could still have drilled tho 1( j recruits, and instead of receiving halfbaked recruits under tho present system, and taking eight months to train j, them, the men would bo ready drilled or as soon as proper equipment was availlie able. lv -Why should wo prolong tho war, when 'S by instituting conscription we would be n ' enabled to considerably shorten the ' ss period. Modern strategy imposes the i ll ' most important rulo —that given t'ho J,. men, with adequate artillery support, a ' ce superior forcc'massed at any one strate,n gical point is the, only means to ensure X- victory. Wo may havo won victories ti- with driblets in the days of t'ho "Brown on Boss" musket, and apparently wo have ~ not hitherto deviated from our ancient I, policy of sending driblets to stratogml 'points, to bo slaughtered. But in j, thoiso days of tho high oxccllence of im- ' J_p/oved modern artillery, and devastate

machine-guns, driblets are only food for powder—to be annihilated. It is time that wo should realiso tbat this is the antithesis of strategy, and that the only way to end this war efficiently, and shorten its duration, is to always operate with overwhelming numbers on any given strategical point of advantage. Now look at the other side of the picture. If national sorvice had.been enforced, we should have been able to place over half a million men on tho Serbian front; Franco a similar propertion, and this would have brought jjj Greece and Rumania in on the side of J the Allies. That would have "meant another million or more,, and Russia f 0 probably 800,000. We should then have outnumbered the Austro-Germans on the Austrian front, and have been able to strike on Austria's weakest _ flank, and this movement would in overy probability have neutralised Bulgaria. In the West, all wo can claim is that we have held the Germans; and in theory,'if financial. economic factors do riot intervene at the presenti rate of S! progress, it would take thirty years probably to march on Berlin. Out here wo are under the blissful delusion that we are winning all along the lino, when we are only holding tho Central Powers, and as a fact we have only won on the sea! Now, Sir, I contend , that we havo missed a great strategical chance through Serbia, and what is the reason? Becauso universal service has not been enforced.—l am, etc., F. B. DENNIS, Late Poverty Bay. Cavalry. Rot-orua.