AUSTRALIA AND CONSCRIPTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 78, 30 October 1916, Page 4

AUSTRALIA AND CONSCRIPTION.

In no part of the Empire will there be deeper regret at the result of the Australian referendum on the question of Conscription for foreign service than in Australia itself. Already the Commonwealth has sent forward somewhere about two hundred thousand of the bravest and finest troops in the world, who have come forward voluntarily to fight the Empire's enemies, and to think that, to save their own miserable skins, the aliens, shirker!, skulkers, traitors and cowards, who have evaded the clarion call of duty, should—in the absence of these splendid fighting men—be of sufficient number to give the selfishly misguided, peace-at-any-priee party an apparently preponderant vote on the question of conscription, is disgusting. The men in the trenches will doubtless show their scorn by killing more Bodies than ever, while volunteering in all the Australian States may be expected to wake up in very shame at what has. happened: but unfortunately this will not catch the eligi-j ble shirker. Of course this mere in- t cident in the Empire's day's work, though unpleasant, is not going to interfere with the war's progress one iota, though German Wilhelm may even be-flag Berlin again (it has been done for less) and Wolff's Bureau will make the most of the opportunity to feed falsehoods to neutral countries. The latter, will, in any case, be simply amusing. But at the bottom of all is the fact that Mr Hughes and his Government made the mistake of their lives in attempting* to pander to popularity, by ever consenting to :i referendum at all. They should have had back-bone enough to put through such a Military Service Act as New Zealand has done. They might with a little 'cour-;

age do it yet "in spite of the &macJ-: in thi> lace tbey have got, and if they did they would be better thought of and the shirker would be caught. Why, in any case, should seventy or , eighty thousand stay-nt bonus bo allowed 10 .airy a vote while twice the number of men who would certainlv

vote against them ar© doing their duty to their country and to humanity in taking up arms against- the most murderously, brutal and f'uul foeman the world has ever