MILITARY LAW AND THE FRANCHISE.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 48, 9 February 1912, Page 14

MILITARY LAW AND THE FRANCHISE.

Sir, —From whatever point one views recent defence (?) legislation, one finds instances of the blazing injustice and arrogant insolonco of the "tinsel and big drum" class. Ona doesn't mind their modest assumption of the supreme value of tho military caste—that is to be expeoted. Tho primitive notion of tho primary importance of the fighting man-is >«1i vita us. But, when the

rights of the ordinary citizen, who recognises the wickedness and ' I'ollj of the whole business, arc forfeited, and his right to'tliink for himself cnallengcd, well —some ol us are going to have a word to say about it.

We. have it on the authority of General Clodli'y thai 'any youth who refuses to register automatically losos his vote.'' Beautiful, isn't it? Reminds mc of the methods of Captain Jackson Barry iv the days when he was chairman of a certain old-tinte committee. If the committeemen didn't vote a* dictated, ho just "chucked them out of the window."

'■Automatically loses his vote!" How very simple! No inquiry or trial; no word of conscientious conviction or hatred of conscription ; it's done automatically—like the thinkingi of some militarists.

And this, too, in the case of young citizens who. have not as yet attained an adult agi»! They are denied citizenship for life; the sentence is irrevocable! Woe unto those that refuse to bow doivn to the Baal of Militarism!

Notice the reason given for this iniquity.

It is argued with fine militarist logic and sense that if a man refuses to serve his country as a soldier he ought to have no right to live in it, no matter how worthily he might serve it otherwise or how fine a character he may he. Of course, ho may be charged with murder, and upon the sentence being commuted to manslaughter and upon his serving a term of .imprisonment, he may subsequently exercise the franchise as a freo citizen. He may be a forger, a thief, a scoundrel of any sort, and totally unfit for decent society; but he is not deprived of his citizen rights. That injustice is retained for the conscientious young man who has boon reading Tolstoi and Jesus, who has imbibed the sentiment of the world's peace leaders, who is with the modern humanitarian spirit,, who has conscience and brains, who .thinks and reads, and knows how unsound economically, as well as ethically bankrupt, is the imperialistic doetrino, and how wickedly foolish' the receiitly-passed defence-offence legislation is!

And we sit supine and tolerate a system that, gives to militarism and its "draper's model" exponents powers and privileges enabling them to politically annihilate those who disagree with them'

Tho bumptious " Bwi'tish officah," with his assumption of privilege and disproportionate salary, is with us another unwelcome addition to tho load carried by the workers of this State. Are we prepared to see the youthful citizens of this free country treated in a manner worse than we itreat our criminals? Not much I ...» How much longer will the tomfool notion prevail in our midst that military service is the best service a man can. render his country? Who best serves :his fellows —he who blindly obeys the'command to fight in a cause of the justice of winch he may know nothing (a cause engineered, it may' be, by greed and carried on by shameful means), or he who trains brain and hand for educational or industrial labor for the common good? Whether is it he who builds up the institutions and arts pi a humane civilisation or he who goes blindly to pujl them down, hypnotised -by some "inspired" rumor of threatened invasion? Is it.not obvious that,.if moral worth and civic capacity we're the conditions upon which alone the citizen franchise could be gotten and retained, many of the parasites who live on war and'minors of war would themselves be disfranchised?

But— <: nuff sod!" Labor legislators know that there is in this country a class of citizens who are egotistical enough to think their ethical standard and practical commonscnsO at least equal to that of tho men >vho let this piece of jackass legislation slip into law. We are caruest, we are eager and active, we are growing in numbers and in influence, and we will go to jail— yes, we will go to belli—but we won't have military conscription in Now Zealand. —-Yours, etc-, Chen. R. F. WILLIAMS.