Military Training.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 10, 12 May 1911, Page 8

Military Training.

It is called "military training," but it is conscription. And it means militarism. That in New Zealand and in Australia the workers did not roar and rage against tlio imposition upon the people of the unclean thing—a danger of the ages—is perhaps sign of the stultification which comes upon a people which forgets that "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty." "To have anything to do with armies or navies is a betrayal of the working class," says Walter Thomas Mills; in. that clarion call of his printed on another page. Hear, further, these vital words from him {underline them—paste them on your bedroom wall above your eyes): "Remember, there never was a slave except a soldier made him one. No slave ever remained a slave longer than some soldier kept him one. Exploitation under the form of slavery was never possible without the service of the soldier. The exploitation of labour in any form cannot long survive except by, the service of the soldier."

As if to testify to the truth of the foregoing, as if to cry "Halt!" to the New Zealand workers, there came re eently a cablegram from the United States reporting the- growing hostility ef the American workers to militarism. And this is the dominant working class note in all those lands which have each the army and navy our political parties say we need. These proletarians have tested and tried militarism, and spewed it out for the diabolical foe it is. Only a few months ago at- the German Social Democratic Congress, a comrade produced a circular of the exCommanding General of the 7th Corps, showing that militarism is already »pen]y preparing to slaughter the workers. Militarism is the foe of progress, the handmaiden, of Jingoistic Imperialism, the maker of war. Its soul is terri-tory-hunger. It is the offspring of Capitalism. It is Capitalism's last defence. Militarism is coercive, greedy, bloody. It is a Moloch driving a Juggernaut car. During the Boer war it suppressed free speech. During every war it has done so. It is the enemy to Freedom and to Jjiberty. It inflam-es the p-eople to their hurt, and to the murdering of ether peoples equal to them in the right to life It blinds judgement, foments frenzy, slays Reason. Here in New Zealand, as everywhere, it will ounningly contrive to divert attention from local and social affairs to alarmist and fiendish "scares" and conspiracies. In a striking article in "Public Opinion," dealing with some remarkable changes in public opinion in the last half-century, Professor Alfred Russell Wallace (cd-equal with Charles Darwin in an epochal work) points out ihow Capitalism and Armaments have jointly and inseparably risen to tremendous power. The logical lesson is Obvious. Says Wallace: "In the vast subjects of militarism and the rights" ©f the lower races there seems to be no advance in effective public opinion. The two subjects are closely connected, and the enormous increase of armaments in an ever-increasing ratio, together with the parallel increase of Capitalism and the greed for wealth and power, render all attempts at real humanitarian progress more difficult than half a century ago." Militarism blocks the workers' way to gaining the full product of their labor. It is in the road of Progress. Submit to it., and farewell to New Zealand Liberated. The workers of New Zealand and Australia know that during the maritime, shearers' and miners' strikes of the '90's tho military was called out to beat them; and yet they are feeding the thing that swallowed them, and is hungrier now for their class. Where people are'trained to fight, a percentage always wants to fight, and forms that professional class which, being professional, seeks to put the profession into practice. What have Labour Leaders —Labour Leaders!—to do with "fooling about capitalistic Defence. The capitalistic earnivora have devoured them. The true line of working class action is "Insurrection rather than war." At present. Prepare for insurrection. Educate, agitate, organise for it. International Solidarity of the working class! —that is the aim, the real defence, almost the consummation. The Red International!—there alone lie security, safety, defence. It will "stop the war" in every nation. It will bring the workers to supremacy. It will fling Conscription to Hell.