MR HINE AND DEFENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 63, 19 July 1913, Page 4

MR HINE AND DEFENCE.

Wellington’s Evening Post considers that “the most notable contributions to the Address-in-Reply debate on Tuesday were those of the memberj for Stratford and the Premier, and, continues: “Mr Hine’s direct andj breeze style presents an agreeable j contrast to the halting utterance of j the conventional trimmer. On the j Public Service Commission and on thoi needs of the hack-blocks be had some! forcible words to say, pointedly reminding the Loberals, with regard to the former, that the government had only carried into effect the recommendation of the Royal Commission appointed hy the Mackenzie Government. But Mr Hine’s treatment of the do-

fence question gives us particulai pleasure. The mischief-making busy bodies whom he denounced have hac so disproportionate an amount of po-j lite attention paid to them lately that it is quite refreshing to hear a few plain words of the kind that the occasion really demands. There is, indeed, a real danger that a ‘mawkish sentimentality’ not confined to the

martyrs ami their instigators may produce an attitude of compromising weakness quite incompatible with the dignity and efficiency of the law. If the Defence Committee appointed—in which, though its personnel is generally satisfactory, we should have had still more confidence if -Mr Hum had been a member of it—can devise a practicable scheme of alternative service, let them do so; and, if it is sufficiently distasteful as well as useful, let conscientious objectors be allowed wide facilities lor taking advantage, of it. But as soon as the Committee’s report has -been considered and disposed of, it must he clearly understood that concessions have reached their limit. We entirely agree with Mr Hine that those who refuse to undertake any kind of service, who-, ther military or civil, and attempt to. put their own will above'that of the State, should then ho plainly told that they must toe the line or go. The shirker and the anarchist have no place in a law-abiding community which may at any'time he balled upon to fight for its life.”