ROMAN CATHOLIC PRELATE ON CONSCRIPTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1641, 23 November 1916, Page 4

ROMAN CATHOLIC PRELATE ON CONSCRIPTION.

FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J. In the Nineteenth Century for September, Father B. Vaughan, S.d., writes: — “No man, in the present stage of civilisation, where States are for the most part compacted and fully organised, can for a moment reasonably pretend to regard himself as an independent unit, free from the obligation of serving the State. “You cannot — as Air Lloyd George in his characteristic way said recently at Conway—you cannot run a war as you would a Sunday school picnic, a number voluntarily bringing something, and others lounging about taking advantage of what otlievs have done. “I contend, then, that a man whe* realises that be is a member of the State, be be Socialist or not, is a debtor to it, and is bound by prin-

copies of the strictest justice to render it service.

“When one of these fellows (antinational Socialists) (nibbles about his life and personality being sacred, when another declares that the war is no quarrel of his, and when a gang of others denounce military service as tyranny, they are talk-

ing humbug. “Yes, indeed, for when you accept the benefits provided you by the State —benefits of personal immunity, of comfort, of culture, of justice, and of freedom —you are morally bound in return to help the Slate when, for instance, she is waging a just war, and she calls upon you to rally to her flag and to fight for her honour.’’