The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1915. THE COMPULSORY SERVICE QUESTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 67, 18 November 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1915. THE COMPULSORY SERVICE QUESTION.

i in " Some ■tivtM’esting reference to conscrjption and the feeling in Britain on tile question is made by the London correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, who says that, suppose Parliament, at the instance of the Government, decrees, that compulsion shall be applied to military service, what is likely to be the result? He presumes that Ireland may be left out of view'on the supposition that she would not be included in the area of compulsion in the peculiar circumstances of her political situation. It will be remembered that national registration was not enforced upon Ireland, and it is asked; Could compulsion be successfully and peacefully applied to Great Britain? Organised Labor is avowedly opposed to it. Immediately after Mr J. II Thomas uttered his warning in the House of Commons the executive committee of the National Union of Railwayman met and congratulated him, endorsed his declaration, and instructed the general secretary to summon it as soon as the Government introduced any proposal for compulsory military service. That particular union may or may not be a typical illustration of Labor. But there it is, a danger signal in the path. Just before the mail left, the “Scotsman” said: “The voluntary system, under which, as Lord Kitchener testified the other day, such marvels have been done, holds the field, and will not be easily displaced. The anticonscriptionists can be assured that the forces making'for resistance are powerful, and will lie overcome only by the strongest necessity.” The correspondent quoted believes that very much will depend on the manner in which a conscription proposal is presented .to the nation. The danger would be considerably reduced if military compulsion were not complicated with workshop compulsion. In South Wales the miners treated the Munitions Act with scorn. To them it was a scrap of powerless paper. Would compulsory industrial provisions in any new law be' workable? If not, then the military compulsion had better try its fortune alone. Dealing further with the subject the view is expressed that the danger would be reduced if it could be convincingly shown that tile recourse to compulsion was decided upon by the Government and Parliament, not under the pressure of intriguing, hut as a method demonstrably necessary to the securing all the men required by the Army. An appeal by Lord Kitchener on purely military grounds, and as such submit-

ted to Parliament by the Government, and duly sanctioned, would have, it is suggested, very great weight, first with the Label' leaders, and then with the unions. 1 If the unions could be won over, there would be nothing serious to apprehend from unorganised labor, as the unions are believed to have a profound respect for Mr Asquith and Lord KitMfener. The fact is also mentioned that, some of the foremost Liberal journals' are not absolutely) uncompromising op-| ponents of military compulsion. The

Daily Chronicle, the West,minster Gazette, and the Manchester Guardian are' all prepared to accept compulsion if. voluntaryism plainly fails to meet the] call of the war. “We are not off those,” says the last-named journal,] “who will refuse to consider the case for compulsion on the very day that the voluntary system has been honestly tried out to the full, and -hasfailed to meet the manifest needs of the war. . We believe that there is no large class within the British Isles who would not he prepared, on reasons shown, and on the proof of event?, to make this sacrifice.” But the case requires to be argued out. Munitions and equipment may be more necessary than men. “Russians.” writes Sir George Bower,'-VConserva-tive, “are reported to have about eight million men waiting equipment and munitions, and I believe it to be approximately true that, taking all trades together, one thousand-'work-men can equip twenty thousand soldiers in six months. It is better, therefore, that a thousand British workmen should equip twenty thousand Russian soldiers, or that they should do the goose step on Salisbury Plains, and leave the twenty thousand Russians unarmed?”