The Daily News. MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1011.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 92, 9 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1011.

'•IT WAS A PRETTY SIGHT." A little ship (or a big ship) was on the, sea. She was a pretty sight. She was bringing English goods to the remotest outpost of the Empire. New Zealand. Her .people felt secure. They did not conceive that danger was possible. Yet there steamed over the horizon a warship, which pounded her with shell and sunk her. The people who died did not know there was a war in progress. They were non-combatants, innocent workers in the great world of commerce. Armed powers in a state of war have little compassion. Human life is of small consequence. Such an incident, as the above imaginary one might happen, has happened, is happening now, and will happen again. Misguided optimists everywhere, because they have never seen red war, believe that war will never touch them. In New Zealand there is a class of person who, because he knows war to be wicked, believes it is wrong to prepare in order to make war a remote contingency. We have seen lately that with appalling suddenness Italy has gone to war with "the unspeakable Turk," and that the Turk is loth to enter the contest because he is disorganised and unprepared. \Ye have heard the truth repeated by our own leading soldier, General Godley. that France was licked in the Franco-Ger-man war because she was unprepared. He has also repeated the truth that France no longer fears war, because she has never been in such good fighting trim since the days of the grand army, the spirit of the people being high, and their (rue patriotism fanned to a feivid heaU There is a lesson for the laggards of New Zealand in this. All the froth of the. "hands up" brigade, all their "heroism" in refusing to allow their sons to make manly preparation would be for-, gotten at the scream of the first shell.' It is a comfortable enough thing to read that .1 war is in progress some thousands of miles away, that unspeakable confusion and destruction is raging and that we are safe. Our present safety is possible only because of the preparation of the Mother Country. "We might be mopped up in the maw of the first covetous Power but for the might of Britain. A few of us rail in a feeble falsetto against the tiny preparations this country is making to aid our own flesh and blond in staving off threats against British supremacy—a supremacy that allow* us to live. We have the fact before our menial vision at the moment that war is still the deciding factor in international quarrels. The most parochial of us. the most insensate "hands- : uppers'' of ns. if we know anything, know that the greatest diplomacy must he used to prevent the embroilment of Britain in the international rumpus. Our protests against war do not make war impossible, our objections to calm and efficient preparations do not alter human nature, our posing as advocates of ''take it lying down" do not aid humanity one whit. If Britain were involved in war to-morrow New Zealand would boil with expressions of fervid patriotism. If Britain had a victory, the people of this small, helpless country

would "maffick" as they did before. They would not consider the rights or wrongs of the ease. A nation at war never does. We should in the old hot-blooded fashion rejoice at the enemy's losses. We should wave penny Union Jacks (made in Germany!), and some of us would get drunk and tell each other what the admirals and generals ought to do. We should feel that we were helping the grand old flag by shouting from a safe place, by waving a counterpart of the flag, by cursing the enemy. But we will say the enemy is here on the spot, is dropping shells in our towns, is cooking it» HK'iit with our houses, trampling our crops down, making our wives and our children flee, cutting our fences, blowing up our bridges and railway stations, eating our stock; shooting our young men, making widows and orphans, devastating the country, sowing typhoid in our rivers—making New Zealand one vast hospital and cemetery. Overdrawn? Xot at all. War is war. What are you going tu do about it, Mr. Conscientious Objector? Are. you going to wail out your petty objections against war, or are you going to pull a trigger to save your wife and children and, chief of all, yourself? Do you object to the Xavy allowing you to live in peace? Do you object to permitting the people of New Zculand to love and marry and to have children undisturbed by hurtling shells, bayonet charges, disease, starvation, destitution? Would you care to live on half a biscuit a day and a waterbottle full of dirty water containing typhoid germs? Can you help anybody by protesting and whining and lying down? Why not arrange these matters by arbitration? "Here," says a member of the peaceful tribunal, "is an empty country," putting his finger on the red blot indicating New Zealand. "I move that it be awarded to Germany." Duly seconded, and carried on the voices. Even Mr. Conscientious Objector would raise a protest and possibly an unfamiliar gun; Our supreme confidence, undisturbed by the fact that the earth is teeming with men whose business arid pleasure is war, makes us believe that we can handle any number of these foreigners. Many of us hate the thought of learning how to do it, hate organisation, discipline, the creation of a national spiril, a real abiding love for the country, an inviolable belief in the sacredness of our right of occupancv. We are so used to the punctuality of ships, the unhindered stream of borrowed money, the lack of great incidents, the smallness of events, that we cannot conceive a state of terror and destitution caused by war. , Just as we trust the fire brigade to save a burning dwelling,, so do we permit the trained sailor or soldier to douse the greater conflagration. Tt is not sufficient that we yell and make "patriotic speeches." Speeches don't mend bullet-holes and waving a flag won't prevent an army from trampling down crops or binning farmsteads. The present situation, although not immediately affecting \u, is potent for evil. If .Britain become involved in war, Xew Zealand will instantly feel the tremendous, burden. To continue to prate about the wickedness of war is as futile as trying to extinguish the sun with a tiro hose. At the moment there are millions of tons of warships on the water ready to steam anywhere at a moment's notice. Cnder these circumstances "Mr. Conscientious Objector" implores his son not to humiliate 'himself by learning to defend his home. "Mr. Conscientious Objector" should try his persuasive eloquence on the Duke of: Abruzzi or the leader of the Turkish legions. It will have the same effect as a wireless protest to Alexander imploring him not to continue his naughty project of coni|iiering tbc world. In the meantime, let ".Mr. C 0.," "Paterfamilias," "Constant Reader," "Mnltum in Parvo," "Vox I'opuli, - ' and the rest arise and smite the Italians and the Turks with inky objections and advise us to meekly submit when our day of war dawns.

PROPORT rOXAL REPRESENTATION'. For general information, the Hon. G. Fowlds has circulated his Proportional Representation and Effective Voting Bill. There will be no opportunity during the remainder of this session for discussion of Bills promoted by private members, so that the measure will not secure an expression of opinion from the present Parliament. The Bill embodies the well-known principles of proportional • representation, and proposes several consequential alterations in the Legislature Act. of which it is described as an amendment. The proposal is that the existing electorates should be grouped in conformity with community of interest and geographical continuity with three or more members for each electorate, forming nineteen districts, the ten North. Island districts returning 42 members, and the nine South Island districts thirty-four./ In a prefatory memorandum to the Bill. Mr. Fowlils suggests that Parliament should decide the number of electorates into which the Dominion should be divided (the minimum number of members in each electorate to be three) and then leave the fixing of the boundaries to a commission. These boundaries, once fixed, should be permanent, or only liable to be altered at long periods, when special developments or extensive alterations in the population have taken place. The number of members might be automatically increased when the population of any district or districts increased to an extent that would be equal to more than half ; the quota for the whole Dominion. This I quota would be arrived at. by dividing the total population by the number of members in the expiring Parliament. In like manner the number of members for a district would be decreased bv one member if the population fell to such an extent that one of its members would represent less than half the national quota. It might, however, be desirable to provide I hat no district which bad only three members should in this way lose a member. The boundaries of the permanent electorates should be fixed in such a manner as would make them suitable areas for a complete system of local government. The larger local-governing bodies controlling within each electoral district ought to have the care and control of all such matters as main roads, and the duties now devolving on land boards, education boards, harbor boards, hospital and charitable aid boards, with one electoral roll and one election-day in each year, except in the case of Parliamentary elections, which it would bo desirable to have on a separate day. The author of the Bill adds the opinion

I that all local elections should be coni ducted under the system of proportional ' representation.

UNFIT FOR ACTIVE SERVICE.

Colonel James Purdy, director of medical services in New Zealand, has been honored with the presidency of the naval and military section of the Australasian Medical Congress, and last week he delivered his presidential address. He said that the advent of compulsory training had considerably increased the responsibilities of the medical profession upon whom the future of the citizen army largely depended, for they were virtually responsible for the proper physical training of the cadet, and the selection of the men who would make the army. He lwd.no hesitation in saying that compulsory training would prove of the greatest service to the country, and the improved physique of the youth of the country. But though a boy might bo physically fit to undergo training without detriment to his constitution, tkere was a great difference between a. cadet and a youth of 18. The cadet was being trained with a view to his entering the a.rmy. As a youth he was being trained with a view to helping in the defence of his country. Consequently, only the very best of the youths of the country should be taken. There was no sense in training a soldier to fight, and when the day of battle came to find him unable, for physical reasons, to do so. A youth of 18 must have absolutely no constitutional weakness, for he would have not only to march many miles in a day, but he would have to carry a fairly heavy equipment, at least 301b weight—the ordinary soldier carries a 001b kit—and after a march of manv miles he might have to fight. A youth might be comparatively healthy, 'and able to do a good day's work at his trade, but even then might not be quite fit enough to make an efficient soldier. It had generally • been found that the average rejects in the forming of a well-selected army in a healthy community worked out at about 40 per cent, of the youths of Australasia, for some cause or another, who are unfitted for efficient military service, and I also venture to assert that in the course of a very few years, owing to the great improvement m the national physique that will bo effected by compulsory training, that the percentage of unfit men will be greatly decreased, and that the nation at large will be greatly benefited." . He n<Med that the exigencies of modern warfare demanded not only fit soldiers, but highly-accomplished officer*, and lie also advocated thorough organisation of tho medical corps. He was glad to have observed that New South Wales was the first country in the world to have a properly-organised and properly-equipped medical force, and they proved in South Africa what could be done by woll-train-ed medical officers and troops.