THE VOICE OF THE SHIRKER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 87, 13 April 1911, Page 6

THE VOICE OF THE SHIRKER.

As there are exceptions even to thewidest and most salutary of human rules, it is not to be wondered at that even the general chorus of approval with which Tthe application of the compulsory principle to the establishment of a citizen army has been welcomed is not absolutely unanimous. The enthusiasm and -self-sacrifice for which Lord Kitchener stipulated as equally essential to the suc-r-eess of the new system with the provisions- of the law are freely forthcoming, and instead of being checked by the •adoption of the principle of compulsion, 'the military ardour of, our young men has been appreciably quickened. But there are - some among them whose souls are 'dead to the call of patriotism and publio -duty, and in a free country it was only to be expected that they should make themselves heard. They may be but a .small and a feeble folk, but if they can *do nothing else they can at least write anonymous letters to the newspapers, in. ' which the honoured names of liberty and justice are used' as -a cloak for selfishness eand sloth. We certainly advise these ; gentlemen to ' Continue as they have be--gun, and to confine their protests to -this cheap and convenient form. In a letter which we .published on Saturday, "Anti- '■ Conscript" expressed the hope that all ,young men affected by the demand of the Defence Department should "protest -against it by refusing to register, or in some other way signify their objection." Our recommendation to "Anti-Conscript" -and, those who share his objections to thedischarge of an honourable and imperative public duty is that they refrain from parading themselves as fools, criminals, ■and laughing-stocks by the ridiculons dovice of refusing to register. There are other services than those of the soldier which the State sometimes has to enforce upon the citizens who break its laws, :and "Anti-Conscript" would find, if he had the courage to take his own advice, that they are a good deal more arduous and more irksome than the paltry round of drills to which the young soldier has to submit, that they take a much longer' time, and that they are not relieved by any solatium of honoir or sympathy. To-day the voice of the shirker again makes itaelf heard in our columns. With a finer choice of name and upon even loftier principles, "A True Briton" comes forward to preach the same gospel of pusillanimity and poltroonery. In the name of independence, manhood, and the traditions of the British race, this "True Briton" protests against a measure which, if given >a fair chance, should do more for the development of the best elements of manliness among our young men than any other that has been passed for a very long time. Melancholy indeed is the picture which our correspondent draws of a lad who has hardly left school when he is seized, crushed, and brutalised by a grinding military tyranny. "He is beginning to know Jris powers, to feel that he is his own master, to bo self-reliant, and is just developing into manhood. To place him under instructors' who will bully him" ■and order him about like a dog is to 'break that young Mlow'b spirit, or at any rate to bar his development into pei'fect manhood. It will knock out of him every manly quality," etc., etc. A prettier tale to tell to the marines wo have seldom heard, but it is far too good to waste on any other audience outside of Russia or Germany. In those countries military methods aro rough .and sometimes brutaL but- it would be ias rational to keep one's children from the kindergarten for fear of Mr. Squeers as to suppose that this nonsense repreeents anything that could conceivably happen in New Zealand- The whole ■colonial air reeks with freedom, and the .■supplement which most of our young •men need to the gospel of freedom in order to perfect their manhood is discipline. We have no hesitation in saying that if the scheme of training proposed were not of the famtest military value, ' its moral advantages from this> standpoint would bo such as to make it worthy of adoption on this ground alone. It speaks highly for the intelligence and moral sense of the community that even these highly moral'protesteagainst teaching our young men how to defend their 'Country can only be discharged from the shelter of a norn de plume.