Conscription, or Communism.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 6, 1 July 1913, Page 3

Conscription, or Communism.

Somewhere within the ugly shell of His Majesty’s ship New Zealand is emblazoned the device: 4 ‘ Fear God. Honour the King.” With neither proposition need the workers of the world be, in the slightest degree, concerned. Religion is no longer safely moored to the Rock of Ages; it is rapidly going to pieces on the Rock of Natural Science. And Capitalism has reduced Kingship to a meaningless term, and the King to a. mere figurehead. Honour the King ! Once on a day, when Kings were really Kings, they could build or break Empires. One Royal critic of another’s Royal eyebrow may plunge nations into ravaging wars. But now —why, Kaiser Bill might cast his rheum in the eye of Georgius Rex, or they might slobber wedding-feast kisses over each other’s cheeks, and the gall or gaiety of nations remain unchanged. War is not a sentiment affair, but a matter of finance. The Royal Palace gives place to the Chamber of Commerce, whose habitues alone decide the ■“ to be or not to be” of War; and be sure these canny creatures are not commercially concerned in the adverse criticism of a Royal wart. Fight for the King, indeed ! Why, His Gracious Majesty is but the sufferance-subject of the Kings of Finance, in the interests of whom —of whom.alone ! —War, wholesale slaughter of men by men, is perpetrated. On behalf of the rich—whom the Church professes to damn—our boys are taught to hate —no matter whom. Are trained to kill—no matter whom. Love one country; hate all others. Honour the King, and brain a brother-human. That the summary of militarism!

The average conscript knows nothing of what principle he will be called upon to defend, in what particular cause his brute instincts will be unleashed. He will slaughter somebody, some day, that’s all. Whom, he knows not. It may be a kinsman, or a mate, victim, like himself, of economic oppression. But this he does know: the weapon he wields was fashioned for one specific purpose—Murder; that his training has one objective—Blood. But we may as well recognise this paramount fact: War is unavoidable, compulsory military training inevitable, disarmament impossible, so long as Competition for Profit continues the mainspring of industrial activity.

A nation of workers produces, not more than its belly-pinched majority can consume, but more than their poor wages can buy; a foreign market must be, and is, developed. Another nation over-produces likewise, and another, and another. They become rivals in the foreign market. Their interests clash. Peace is only a breathing space. Profit-hunger gnaws at the vitals of Industrial Capital. Its possessors are, necessarily, thrust face to face, and Murder stalks its ghastly form between. Who shall do the dirty work ? Who shall do the killing ? We, the workers, who share not in the profits of industry ? We, the workers, whom Profit enslaves and beast burdens ? Shall we, the workers, do their dirty work ? We have no option, we have to, whilst the Profit System lives, for, being its slaves, we are the easy prey of the rapacious, blooddesiring profit sharks. We must do their dirty work, or wives and children starve. It is only the very few who can weather victimisation and imprisonment; the majority are obliged to heed their masters’ voice. But, when the Profit System shall have been overthrown, when all people shall have communal ownership in all things, when economic freedom is realised by the international working class, there will be no need for armies and navies, no need for the cunning glorification of shedded blood, the hypocritical sanctification of a destitute’s tears.

If the workers will not fight on the economic field, they will be made fight on the field of blood. If they will not take a defiant stand in the international conflict between Labour and Capital, they must perforce take up their masters’ sword, and make a brother’s heart its scabbard. Not until the Class Struggle is ended, the regime of Capital blasted, can the brotherhood of nations ever become a fact.

Labour lias within itself the power to paralyse the Profit System. It must cleri e the Property Laws, enforce the restitution of the creations of its brain and brawn, and reorganise Society so that each may realise his natural manhood, render freely to all according to his abilities, and receive from all according to his needs. Why should there be poverty in a world where a lump of iron can produce, daily, sufficient for the needs of a thousand folk ? To be wealthy is criminal whilst there is, in the wide world, but one wee babe biting at a barren dug. Kingship, crowned or commercial, is an anachronism whilst the term “ Poverty’’ remains unblotted from the language of the human race. ' /

All roads lead to Force. Might alone counts at last. The track of the Law winds painfully through

! a forest of gibbet-posts. The Church is a charnel house. Progress strides over a corduroy of martyrs’ bones. Freedom is Struggle’s natural child, and Labour, in its struggle with Capital, weilds the masterweapon, for, without Labour, Capital is profitless, helpless, dead ! Concerted action by workers, as workers, is the only hope for the anti T militarist. The power of a monopoly must be achieved by the workers over the control of their labour-energy. They must organise internationally as a class; fight, sabot, strike, as a class; paralyse the Competitive Profit System, and purge humanity of its drags.—A.H. „