The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1916. TRUST THE PEOPLE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 109, 9 May 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1916. TRUST THE PEOPLE.

("With which is incorporated The Tai hape Post and Waimarino /News.)

There dees not appear to be the same degree of frankness in New Zealand about the nature of the promised Military Service Bill as ther e wag in England. Almost as soon as it was finally decided there was real necessity for such a measure in Britain there was a liberal publication of its main features. Here in New Zealand we knew what the British Service Bill was to provide for some time before it commenced its way through the House of Commons, but in this country Governments seem to take a pesky, irritating delight in assuming that the people are not as deeply interested as individual or collective members of Cabinet are; that Ministers seem to assume the right to maintain as near absolute secnecy about what people are, by law, to be compelled to do, until they are ready to spring it in the form of a surprise packet on the House, presumably that they may rush it through before the country has time to realise what is actually being done. This is the sort of thing we have experienced during the last few years and -which has been referred to in war nomenclature as the “ strategy of politites. ” There can be no objection to men indulging the silly side of their intelligences in such ways so long as they exercise some discrimination in the selection of subjects and time, but a law that is going to take fnom Britons that freedom that has never been legislated against since it was demanded and granted by Magna Charta, is not for subject for the gratification of any such childishness, nor is the time immediately before one is to have the control of hi s own person taken from him the moment for withholding any information, be its nature whatever it may. British liberty is something we pride ourselves in as Britons, and nothing affecting that liberty should be tolerated only under the extremes of necessity. The country is now of opinion that the time has arrived when, for purposes of national safety, men who will not volunteer must be compelled to act that manly part they were born into the world to perform.

At the same time it would have assisted our law-makers had they removed public suspicion and uncertainty b>' making known the nature of the forfeiture of liberty men are to be compelled to make; how conscripts arc to be selected and the order in which they ane to be called. What maj r appear alright to the men who make conscription laws will not necessarily appeal to the men to be conscripted as all that is best and just. There can be no doubt that the interference with the custody of one’s person should be prefaced with the utmost publicity of manner and extent. It is admitted and argued by the Press that a compulsion bill would need very careful examination to make justice assured. There must be some approved method of taking men; a district that has already contributed beyond its quota must not be cleared of eligibles before backward districts have done their duty. Each district must be given credit fon the men it has already contributed. It would be a manifest injustice to conscript married men in a district from which all single men had already enlisted to an excess of its quota. There are many other features suggested by the provisions of the Service Bill adopted in Great Britain which call for widespread dissemination and consideration, and we trust that members of the House will not permit the passage of ahy such unprecedented measure affecting the liberty of the subject while there is any suspicion that it is not likely to operate with uniform justice. A Military Service Bill is now urgent and we contend that its enactment might have been expedited by judicial frankness such as was practiced by the National Government at Home.