The Case Against Compulsory Military Training.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 50, 23 February 1912, Page 5

The Case Against Compulsory Military Training.

By C. REGINALD FORD

VII. -SOME MILITARJST CLAIMS EXAMINED. (a) That Compulsory Military Service is a Valuable Moral Factor in National Lite. Do tin Froir-h people themselves I>- K-la-vc thai- > -.i:isi i iption is a "valuable moral lac. >r" in uic lilo of die nation Euiphat,rally no —it is left to I'.ng-li-diinen anxious to inlroduce Ihe system into (;. i ,11 Britain ami her nvcrm'ii duiiiiii'Ois r.o make thai |»reposterous claim, in the course ut an army debate in ihe French Chamber, the Nationalists, who are int.use militarists, were challenged to say whether they regarded military service as a good thing in itsell. Ai. Druniont, one of the leaders, and the editor of tho ■Libre Par.de," said: "Compulsory military ser. ice, far from being a school of morals, is a school of drunkenness, of idleness and debauchery. . . . It has -.one a long way towards ruining our peasantry, and to a large extent it has already debused them. . . . 1 deem the universal military service one of the greatest, as it is sometimes one of the saddest, sacrifices that our country calls upon us to bear." Another Frenchman has slated that it is "the school of all the vices." J'ero a famous Fnni-h preacher, said: "The family in France gives to the army a young man clean in mind and body -, ihe army caves back that same young man. steeped to the very lips in debauchery, .suffering from disease and degrading vices," More evidence of the .same kind can he found in "Le Livre de Poehe dv Soldat Franctis.' by Bishop Founder. "Tho thing has passed into the very language of France. One •■•peaks nf 'barrack' morals, meaning everything that is gross, unclean, and repulsive." To quote M. de Freycinet, ex-Minister of War: "'None but the ver\ strongest characters can for long resist the deadly moral influence of the regiment." Even Mr. Shoe, the believer in conscription as a "valuable moral factor" in the life of France, refers to "the general immorality prevalent through all classes in France" —ilie classes which have had the great advantage and blessing of compulsory military training! Rut perhaps Germany's experience is different? Perhaps in Germany conscription proves a "valuable moral factor" in the national life? Readers of '■Life in a Garrison Town," by Lieut. BiLo, who was .sentenced losix months' imprisonment for writing it, will hardly believe that if does, especially after the exposures at the court-martial upon the author "I have the greatest possible admiration for the German nation, as also for the French. When one reflects on the- debt of the world to Germany for her literature, her music, and her science, one feels that civilisation iL-.lt is to a great extent the work of Germany. But what of her militarism? Has universal training tended to the increase of the moral virtues, as it is contended that it would in England? If so, would tho Harden libel case in Berlin have been a possibility, in which 1.1.. counsel for the prosecution spoke of eeitaiu prolligatcs as having been under tho leadership of 'the first in the land and members of a regiment which was the elite of the Prussian Stall'?' In a debate on the matter in the Beieh-st-ag, the leader of the Catholic Centre declared that the trial had 'revealed a state of things within and without the barracks which recalled the conditions in the heal hen Rome of ancient days.' and ihe only defence offered by the Minister of AVar for the mor.-d evils whose recent increase he admitted, was thai they did not attach to the army as a whole."'A) And so the burden might go on for all the countries in which conscription prevails. Indeed, wo need not go to those countries for proof of the grave moral danger attaching to military .service. Mr. Arnold AVhite—-not an antimilitarist, it niusf be noted —wrote of our own army only four years ago (B): "For every 107 civilians who commit suicide, rs7o despairing British soldiers take their own lives, while, as regards disease, the effects are more appalling .still. Of trooiis in Tnclia 60,288 in one year were admitted to hospital, of which 12,' IS') were for sexual disease, fn the Home Army the same year there were 11,1.00 cases of the latter. Yet Mr. Kipling writes: —• 'But what is your boasting worth If ye grudge a year of service To tho lordliest life on earth?' The lordliest lite on earth is not led in a disease, deserter, and criminal-mak-ing militaiy .system. Company officers and nu-n are splendid, but tho system would corrupt angels." Page upon page of unan.sworabio evidence- might be added. Kipling himself, militarist and imperialist, assures us that "single men in barracks don't grow irao plaster saints" —his idea of .''plaster saint being, I suspect, what mo-' >"jcoph* would regard as an ordinary d 'cent man. To avoid any injustice let mc say here that, of course, all soldiers do not fall a victim to tho corrupting inihietico of their environment. By innate goodness of sold and rare strength of character they retain their manhood while they have parted with their freedom. Some of the purest and bravest-hearted men whom it has boon my privilege to know have been members of the Services. But this does not alter the facts above staled.

(b) Brutality in Conscript Armies aids in the Moval Degradation. To aid the moral degradation that is apparently an inevitable part of the system there is the brutality and the inhumanity which is rile in all ooli.cript armies. Here rigain the evidence is overwhelming. The suicide ol a German recruit in L'HIS led to a revelation, which will still be fresh in many minds, of terrible and almost unimaginable cruelty towards the men of the lower ranks in' the German Army. No fewer than 61 Id eas > s of scandalous cruelty were alleged, and four sergeants were .sentenced to imprisonment by the resultant court-martial. What impressed the writer at tho time was not alone the terrible facts revealed, but the lenient sentences imposed upon the guilty parties by the court. Apparently the fact of the cruelties having been inflicted by non-commissioned officers upon privates 'Widened the offences in the eyes of the officers composing the court. It will be remembered that counsel referred to this cruelty to subordinates as not exceptional, but "a cancer which required to- bo eradicated from the Gorman Army as a whole." In the French Army the condition is, if anything, worse. Volumes could be written on the numberless abuses, cruelties, and miseries of military service in that country. The grout French author, Anatolo Franco, lias said:—• "The horrors of our military service arc such that a Frenchwoman, if she has a son, will rejoice at becoming a widow, because that sou will then be exempted from two years of martyrdom."(C) The author of a recent work on Italy, speaking of the Italian conscript army, says: —(m'-Tho officers do not usually ill-treat Hie men . . . although cases of brutality are not unknown, but many of tlte non-commissioned officers are exceedingly rough, and strike and punish the recruits under their command very frequently. There is practically no redress obtainable, as superior officers will rarely listen to complaints from the ranks against noncoms., so fearful are they of undermining military discipline." At the risk of reiteration I want to I'omind those who have sons who are now, or will become, liable to serve, that the inevitable outcome of the present system will be one in which barracks will be necessary, with their accompanying evils. The only way to prevent this undesirable consummation is to stop tho compulsory military service system before it becomes fastened on to the nation. "The object \esson is repeated in every European country, so that it cannot possibly lie overlooked. No power, human or divine, can make the system other than it is. If, with not a single cxceplion, conscription is wlial Lord Wolsoloy once declared it to be, 'a curse' in other lands, mere transplantation across the Straits of Dover will not 'transmute it into a blessing. On that side is fhe Continental military service ; on this are its interested advocates with (heir plausibilities and blandishments. 'Surely in vain is the net spread in siaht of any bird.' " (B> (c) Some Further Militarist Claims. Let us now consider another claim frequently made by the militarists as to tho benefits which will bo derived from compulsory military service. This time it is the editor of the Chrislchurch "Press" who, desirous of proving his case, quotes the example of a Continental Power. Jn the issue of May 25,. 11)09, he wrote: "In that country (Germany) tho compulsory service system has undoubtedly had the effect of improving the national health, fostering a spirit of discipline and self-control, and generally increasing tho efficiency of tho workers." Not an atom of proof is offered, but ]U3t tho bare statement is made, (d) That Compulsory Military Service would improve the National Health. To show that this statement, that in Germany "the compulsory service system has undoubtedly had tho effect of improving tho national health," is hardly in accordance with the facts of the case, I cannot do boter than quote Mr. J. A. Farrar. After showing that in Switzerland the much-praised system of compulsory military service lias not improved tho physique of tho nation, Mr. Farrar writes:—(*')" But possibly you may say that these facts from Switzerland are not incompatible with very different results in Germany. There, perhaps, universal training, besides squaring tho shoulders and steadying tho step of its citizens, has resulted in a permanently finer physique. It is a common statement that the German nation has gained enormously in physique from universal military training, yet what do we find? T hat of the young Germans called up annually for enlistment as many as 46 per cent, are rejected as being physically unfit for military service. So Mr. Slice, the distinguished secretary of your league, informed the Norfolk Commission in 1003, on the authority of a recent official report of the German War Office. 'Forty-six per cent, of the men of an ago for mili-

tary service are rejected as unfit,' exclaimed (he Duke of Richmond with unconcealed surprise. 'That is so,' replied Mr. Shoe. ".Nor is that the whole of Mr. Slice's story, for one of the reasons for the rejection of this vast multitude of young men is their failure to attain a certain standard of height. And Unrequired hoi'cht. according to Mr. Slice, is 'only a fraction over five feet : it is nearlyffi t . feet mm inch!' "Thus in a country which has had compulsory military training for about a century, and which should have shown, a physique improved at compound interest in the existing generation, we find half the male population too weak, too diseased, or too short to be enlisted. In a case where every consideration has been favorable and tho cause alleged of a better physique has long had uninterrupted play, the, effect allowed has not followed. The experiment ,se t .vis to mc a crucial and decisive one. Nor can 1 conceive by what right your militarist writers throw all ordinary tests of logic to the winds." That a course of proper physical culture, under competent instructors — with the necessary preliminary medical examination-would prove beneJicial to the youth of the country, both lwys and girls, cannot be doubted. But need it bo said that this could be obtained better by direct methods without the grave risk attaching to a military regime? It is significant that this anxiety for the physical culture of our young people only became insistent when the necessity arose for finding plausible pretexts for stipiwrting the militarisation of the country. It is significant, too, that when the first programme of senior cadet training appeared the major part of the prescribed training was not physical, but military drill. It was only after pro I est was made that this was altered. I have pointed out elsewhere (G) that Eugene Sandow has stated that a sharp distinction must ho drawn bofween physical and military drill, the latter, he declares, having no value whatever in developing the frame. If the physical wellaie of the race were really the object, being aimed at, obviously tho whole lime now being given to military training should be devoted to physical culture. ft is of the greatest moment to note here that in the Territorials the very ones who should have the physical exorcise- -assumiiiti that the national health is the object—that is, those least physically in do not g<-i jt; they are rejected as unfit. (a) That Compulsory Military Sarvice will foster a Spirit of Discipline. The remainder of the claim made by the Editor of the "Press" as to the beneficial results of compulsory military service in Germany—beneficial results which are, of course, to aecruo to us in a like manner —rests upon an equally slender basis of fact. The service, "fosters a spirit of discipline and self-control." If military discipline does increase the self-control of those subjected to it, tho soldiers of the Imperial Regular Army should be living examples of that virtue. But much as 1 admire Tommy Atkins, after a long acquaintance, with him, 1 have to confess that I have observed in him no marked moral superiority over his civilian brother who has had no military training. Is it unreasonable to ask tho militarist for some proof from experience? The Editor of the Christelntrch "Press," like many other?, quotes the experience of Germany; but Norman Angell well asks: "And what has the Finglish defender of the militarist regime, who

holds lh<' German syst.'in up for imitation, to say of it as a school of national discipline, when ihe Imperial Chancelfiv himself defends the refusal <>i democratic suffrage like that obtaining in Kmgland on the ground tliat the Pnissiiu people have not yet acquired those qualiiies of public discipline which makes it workable in Eofi* land?" (f) Is Military Discipline Desirable? Leaving aside the facts of the easahowever, which are all against such aa assumption, is there any antecedent reason for assuming that the nation would benefit by the subjection of all its youths to a course of military di»< eiplino? Is the training in the subjection of th© will to a superior—th» training in unqualified obedience at all times and in all circumstances —likoly to prove a desirable factor in tho education of youths at the most formativo period of their lives? Surely, only to ask the question is to have it answered in the negative. Such a training is an infamous retrogression from the principles of true education. Have we forgotten Herbert vSpencer's exhortation ; "Remember thafc the aim of your discipline should be to produce a selfgoverning being; not to produce a being to be governed by others?" It cannot bo disputed that the aim and result of military discipline is to produce "beings to be governed by others," and that is exactly what wo do not want in a democratic country. Any education in that direction is a source of danger to our liberty and a drawback to the true prosperity of the country. (g) That Compulsory Military Training would increase the Efficiency of the Workers. Our militarist Editor further claim* that "undoubtedly" the compulsory military service system in Germany has "generally increased tho efficiency of the workers." Wo will take the evidence of an impartial observer—ono not discussing militarism or anti-militarism, but simply writing an account of German national life from actual observation and experience. Yon Schierbrand (H) expresses his belief that the German workman is inferior to the American both in regard to sobriety and steadygoing work. He goes on to s_ay :•■ "Tho German workman has several serious drawbacks, when compart d with the average American toiler ... he is not so strong physically as the American . . . the amount of work actually accomplished by him in from II) to 14 hours is about two-thirds of that accomplished by an American workman in eight hours. At no time is he either willing or able to put forth his best efforts during his work, neither physically nor mentally . . . (he) lacks initiative and inventiveness." These are the facts of the "undoubted" increase of efficiency of the German worker as a result of a century of universal compulsory military training! The lack of initiative of the Gorman is admitted in Lord Roberts' "Fallacies and Facts," but it is stated that lack of initiative was a feature of the German character before military training commenced, and that the blame cannot be thrown on a system "which has always laid great stress on the initiative of the individual," <D and yet, after his unconscious admission of tho absolute failure of the military system after a century's efforts to inculcate a virtue upon which it has laid great stress, tho writer adds that national service in British dominions will develop initiative, self-reliance and originality.