The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1912. MR. BURTON'S MOTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 218, 13 March 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1912. MR. BURTON'S MOTION.

Rev. J. W. Burton/of Whiteley Church, had the privilege of moving a motion antagonistic to military training at the Methodist Conference in Auckland. Mr. Burton has the courage of his convictions, and we honor him for voicing them. He is, however, hardly conclusive. To achieve the disarmament of nations is the noblest possible ideal. To achieve the disarmament of a single country while all other nations are still armed is to' counsel national suicide. To denounce militarism is not to kill it. There is no way to kill it but to make the individual believe it is unnecessary. International arbitration may come, but while there is juggling of territory—where the basis of disagreement is the ownership of a country or a portion of a country, arbitration might be ineffective. Irreparable damage might be done to the people of any country by the findings of an arbitration tribunal. The anti-militarist himself might see the injustice of his own property being handed over to someone else at the instigation of an international court. Mr. Burton counsels the repeal of an Act which has the sanction of the people. In order to effect this repeal, the churches must obtain a remarkable influence over public opinion. It may be demonstrable that the churches will be {able to obtain a hold upon the minds of the people, and may be able to insist that they cast off their barbaric notions of maintaining peace by going armed and fighting when peace is no longer possible. Mr. Burton said that the New Zealand Defence Act was one to -be ashamed of. Perhaps another way of saying that the churches wore ashamed of the vast majority of the people of New Zealand to whom the Act and what it stands for is a real protection. If Mr. Burton were able to convince the people of New Zealand that disarmament in Europe, in China, in Japan and elsewhere was possible, he could convince Now Zcalandcrs that the Defence Act and military training were useless. Mr. Burton claims that he is not a faddist in demanding that New Zealand should go unarmed, while (he nations are armed to the teeth, and he is therefore open to the conviction that ii time might easily arrive when it would he urgently necessary for

him and his and us and ours to be properly protected. Arbitration treaties might break down. They have broken down before. There is no real security in documents, and in times of great unrest even chivalry dies.- There is no swashbuckling about the New Zealand system, nothing aggressive, bloodthirsty or revolting about it. It is simply a national insurance policy.