THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1913. ANTI-CONSCRIPTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 11 April 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1913. ANTI-CONSCRIPTION.

The anti-militarists of Sew ZeaJand will derive immense .satisfaction in a scries of articles that have been published by Dr David Starr Jordan, President of the Stanford University, California, and trustee of the Carnegie Peace Endowment. Dr Jordan is a man of very high intellectual attainments, who conscientiously believes that the international disputes of the world can be settled by arbitration instead of by force of arms. There are thousands, nay mil. lions of people throughout the world who entertain a similar.belief. The difficulty, however, i s inNarriving at the terms upon which arbitration could 1)0 successfully applied. The Peace Conferences that- have been held from time to time at The Hague have made sincere efforts to arrive at an international understanding that would remove the necessity for armaments and bloodshed. So far, however, these efforts have dismally failed. If Dr Starr Jordaji can find a solution of the problem, his name and achievement will be immortalised. Meantime, the writings of this eminent educationalist will hardly appeal to those who believe, that, under existing conditions, the greatest security for peace is to be prepared for war. Mow can we be best, prepared for war? Dr Starr Jodan admits that America must have its Navy and its Army. He contends, however, that service should be purely voluntary. Of universal compulsory military service, he writes: — ■ 'Tt is not American. It is not democratic. It is not wholesome. This service, has been the curse of continental Europe. That no maai is a .soldier against hi.s will is the badge, of freedom In Great Britain and the United States. 'Every. Englishman's house is his- castle.' Every English ma n'« body (except as freedom is lost by' conviction of crime or of incompetence) is secure

from official manhandling. The primal evil of compulsory military service i« its onslaught on'personal freedom." Those precepts are good, so far as they go. But how do they stand in the light of historical facts? Assuming tnab Britain and America, with their voluntary systems, were unable to protect themselves against invasion by a Continental power where compulsory service is in operation? Would sentiment or precept protect them against annihilation? - Would not an untrained body of volunteers dogenerate into a rabble, and be overwhelmed by the highly-trained soldiers of the ■compulsory service nation? l)r Starr Jordan supports his case with the following extraordinary statement:— "Now that the conseriptionists are hard at work in England, active in the United States, and successful in New Zealand 1 , it is time' to stand for individual freedom and individual peace." We do not know upon whose authority the President of Stanford University states that the conscriptionists have been successful in New Zealand. Nobody lias ever dreamt, so far as we are aware, of introducing in this country a form of conscription such as that which is in operation in Continental Europe. New Zealand and Australia have adopted systems of compulsory training. But these are as far removed from conscription or compulsory service as the Poles .are asunder. We have no standing armies, as they have them in Europe. We have no conscription. Our one and only aim is to train our young people so that, in the event of their being 'called -upon to protect their country, they ;would not be hopelessly outclassed in the art of modern warfare. Wo are at one with Dr Starr Jordan when he urges that war is a brutal form of settling disputes. We can.agree with him that it would be better if the navies of the world were to melt away. But we must face the stern facts as they present themselves to-day, and must be prepared for emergencies. The science of warfare may yet precipitate the destruction of the system. The military aeroplanes are the beginning of the end, and the picture given by Gustaf Jansen, of Sweden, after the battle, of the Tripoli Oasis, is most impressive. He tells of an Italian General who said :- "The thr.ee hundred aeroplanes which. .Germany possesses at this moment, all constructed and bought .in France, could 'throw down ten * "thousand" kilos of dynamite on the metropolis of the world in less than half an hour. This is a positively gigantic thought' In the middle of the night these three hundred flying machines, cross the border, and 'before daybreak Paris k a heap---of ruins t Magnificent, gentlemen, magnificent? . . . Unexpectedly, without any previous warning," the rain of dynamite 'bursts over the town. One explosion follows on the other. Hospitals, theatres, schools, 'museums, public buildings, private houses* —all are demolished. The J, "^,' K in, the floors .«'»>'- T * , , ,i, n , jj„„. .. tnrough to the .-...->, crumbling ruins block up the streets. The sewers break and send their foul contents over everything. . . The water pipes burst and there are floods. The gas pipes burst, gas streams out and explodes and causes outbreaks of fire. The electric light goes out. You hear the sound of people running together, crie s for help, shrieking and wailing, the splashing of water,- the roaring of fire. And above it all can be heard the detonators occurring with mathematical precision. Walls fall in, whole buildings disappear in the gaping ground. Men, women and children rush about mad with, terror among the ruins. They drown in filth, they are burnt, .blown to pieces by explosions, annihilated, exterminated. Blood streams over the ruins and filth; gradually the shrieks for help die down. 'When the last flying machine has clone its work and turned northwards again, tlh> bombardment is finished. In Paris a stillness reigns, such as lias never reigned there before."