COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12617, 30 November 1926, Page 6

COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE

A resolution by the executive of the New Zealand Labour Party adverse to compulsory military training is not astonishing, because the party has long opposed compulsory, and, indeed, any military training. Their speakers and writers have given many reasons for this anti-military faith, conspicuous among them being hatred of “militarism,” which many of them denounce as a fertile cause of war by reason of the arrogance of professional military men. This reason was not urged in the resolution sent the other day by the executive of the New Zealand Labour Party to the Presbyterian Assembly in support of the attitude of that body against compulsory training. On this occasion they took their main stand “on the principles of the Founder of the Christian Church.” ■ At the same time they took care not to abandon their “militarism” shibboleth. For m making a promise of support for the Assembly’s attitude they pledge themselves to sustain any effort that may be made “for the abolition of systems that breed the military spirit.” This, of course, is the old error which considers that a trained force is maintained, not for the defence of a nation, but merely for the cultivation of a fighting spirit. That error is cheap criticism and erroneous, whereas national defence is a serious question, and even a necessity. But if the Labour objection to military service is not surprising—even though many of the workers served with patriotic zeal and valorous distinction—the main reliance on the principles of Christianity is astonishing. For, not many years ago, a New Zealand Labour orator declared that a military force, trained and wellequipped, could on occasion be a most commendable thing. The occasion he indicated was the advent of the Labour Party to power. When that should happen, this orator declared that it must have an army to protect itself in the governing position, and he for one insisted that to belong to such a force was the first duty of the citizen. There was no reliance then on the “Founder of the Christian Church,” and none of those present seemed to see that this very decided military policy of their orator in any way contravened the spirit of Christianity. Are we to infer that when not governing the country the Labour movement is most thoroughly, even fanatically, Christian, but that when in power its attachment to Christian principles disappears? That, in fact, their objection to compulsory military service is humbug?