CONSCRIPTION IN FRANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 26 June 1913, Page 7

CONSCRIPTION IN FRANCE.

MR H. G. WELZ'S VIEWS. Mr H. G. Wells, writing in <ao fXaily Mail, explains "Why I do not believe that conscription would increase the military efficiency of this country, and why I think it might be a disastrous step for this country to take."

"it is our common interest to be and to keep at the maximum of military efficiency possible to use. My case is not merely that conscription will not contribute to that, but that it would be a monstrous diversion of our energy and emotion and material resources from the things that need urgently to be done. USELESS CONSCRIPTS.

"It is true that Britain at the present time ia no more capable of creating such a conscript army as France or Germany possesses in the next ten years than'sne i» of covering her soil with a tropical forest, and it is equally true that 1 if she had such an army it would not be of the slightest use to her. For the conscript armies in which Europe still so largely beii.:ves are only of use against conscript armies and adversaries who will consent to play the rules of the German war game. "•.body, mind, and imagination have all to oe traiiK'U, ana tliey need trainers. The conversion of a thousand citizens into anything better - tnan a* sheep-like militia demands the enthusiastic services of scores of abl..' and experienced instructors who know what riar is; the creation ol a universal army demands the services of many scores of thousands of not simply 'old soldbrs,' but keen, expert, modern-minded officers.

"We cannot-spare the best of our \9fficers ..for- training conscripts, we ;sualt-get'the disiboillq's.ti'^ults '£}&¥.< ;41ie ..wrifrst-pf them >dy it vital, n«c«seiiy } coim-. jLtyT to iiaye-«an-. army -of all its, i'ljiood now we could not have it, .and it would be a mere last convulsion t > .'attempt to make it with tlu means at our disposal. "1 believe that the vast masses of men in uniform maintained by the continental Powers at the present tiiqe are enormously over-rated as fighting machines. The military ascendancy of the future lies with the country that dares to experiment most, that experiments and meanwhile keeps its actual fighting "force fit and admirable and small and flexible.

"The experience of war during the last fifteen years has. been to show repeatedly the enornmus defensive power of small, scientifically handled bodies of men. A WASTE OF RESOURCES. "And if too big an army is likely to be a mere encumbrance in war, it is perhaps even a etill greater blunder to maintain one during that > conflict of preparation which is at present the European substitute for actual hostilities. It consumes. It produces no. thing. It not only eats and drinks and wears out its clothes, and withdraws men from industry, but under the stress of invention it needs constantly to b3 re-armed and freshly equipped at an expenditure proportionate to its size. So long as the conflict of preparation goes on then, the bigger the army your adversary maintains under arms, the bigger is his expenditure and the less his earning power. And for Great Britain an attempt to create a conscript army would involve the very maxima™ of moral and material, exhaustion, with the minimum of military efficiency. It would be a disastrous waste of resources that we need most-urgently for other things. "Great Britain has in her armour a gap more dangerous and vital than any me,re numerical insufficiency of in en or ships. She is <short, of minds,. B »hind- its ..'strength of current .'armaments, a strength that begins: to evaporate, and grow obsolete from the very moment it" conies into "being, a country ne?ds more intellectual and creative activity WANTED RESEARCH.

"We need a new 1 arm to our service; we need it urgently, and w 1 shall need it more and. more, and that arm is Research. We neod to place inquiry and experiment upon a new footing altogether, to enlist for them and organiss them to secure the pick of our young chemists and physicists and engineers, and to get them to work systematically upon, the anticipation and preparation of our future war equipmjnt. We need a service or invention to recover our lost lead in these matters."