NO CONSCRIPTION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 269, 9 August 1919, Page 8

NO CONSCRIPTION

SIR JOSEPH WARD'S VIEW A NEED THAT HAS PASSED "The move that has been made towards the alvolition of conscription is ono of the big results of the Peace Conference,"- said Sir Joseph Ward yesterday to a Dominion reporter. "Tlie Peace Treaty requires that Germany, which started the war with 7,000,01)0 armed and trained soldiers, shall reduce it,s armv to a strength of 290,000 at once and to 100,000 after two years. The original proposal was 100,000 at. once, but the number was increased to 200,000 for two years ebioiiy upon the recommendation of Field-Mar-shal Foch, upon the ground that the internal dissonsions in Germany ami tho conditions that the Germans were Mug compelled to apply to themselves after the prolonged war might lead to revolution. It obviously is desirable to prevent the s.'eds of Bolshevism from grow, ing in Germany. This German army of 200,000 men and later of 100,000 men will | 1m a polico force-rather than a fighting I force capable of being used in an aggressive way. ' ' I "Germany was to a very large extent I the home of conscription, and the chango that has been effected is a. tremendous one. When Prussian militarism is no longer armed with powers of conscription, it goes without saying- that countries like France and Italy will not find it necessary to train vast masses of their, young peoplo' to resist attack from such a country as Germany was. The.people 1 of Russia, when they have sjent their forces in internecine war—it can be a matter of only. two or three years at the outsider—will be only too glad to avail themselves of similar conditions and dis* penso with unnecessary preparations for* war. Europe will cease to be a group of nations armed to the teeth for tho purposes either of defence or .aggression when the conscription of men for military purposes disappears. "It is scarcely necessary to say that the people of Great Britain and "Ireland have never been friends of conscription j nor have any of the overseas States of the Empire. It is only in comparatively receut times, since the beginning of tho war, that- any of tho States of the Empire have raised armies for the field by a method that is foreign to tho aspirations of the people'of theso young, free and great countries. The Americans have decided that the United States army is not to contain more than 500,000 men. The recruiting of an army of this 6ize in a population cf 110,000,000 will not require any form of conscription. So that with the exception of Japan there; is to-day practically a union of the greatest Powers favourable to the abolition of consoription, and with the League of Nations as an organisation to prevent the" disturbance of the world's peace theTO is a prospect of the greatest nations ; of the world applying themselves U>. peaceful progress instead' of using their energy, money and brains in preparation for the destruction of people to whom they niay be opposed. "I am quite satisfied that in Ney Zealand • conscription is not necessary "Jul should not bo continued There could In no justification for its continuance except for the purpose of enabling us to fight for the freedom of the Empire of which we are a part. In saying that I am quite satisfied that it \is necessary to ifcrain the youth of the country and pass them on to a defence reserve, without anything in the nature of a standing army or the nucleus of a standing army. I have not had an opportunity of reading or examining what has been ' proposed in this country, but my own. view is that wo do not require to continue a system of anything approaching tho nucleus of a standing army. The training of youths in order to enable them to be fit for the defence of their hoarths and homes is quite a different matter from the .maintenance of anything in the ture of a trained arnry."