A Protest Against Conscription.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 11, 26 June 1900, Page 4

A Protest Against Conscription.

Basing his argument on the slriU'J with which the untrained Boer*| risisted our attacira, M» BlQct^alj well-known authority, makes a pro 3 test against conscription for thi^ country. He attributes the pressnll prosperity of England to thai absence of compulsory service ,• anil he is by no means agreed with those| who point to German progress asJ evidence that conscription has m 3 crippling effect. He says; — 1 m "Barrack life would tend foil cripple the productiveness of th«|f people, by arresting the growth and! development of cei'tvim of the besfi qualities of Biiti&h workmen wM merchants and a<!rumis j .,rcjfcorsl^ Blind obedience i^ &■■* rule of th|| army, soldiers must, accustom chem^ selves to do what th^y are told anil to wait for orders. They are, so to| say, brought up by hand, patern'.| ally, their spirit of enterprise, om initiative, of sell-reliance, beingS correspondingly dulled or even! killed out as something harmful! The military training is, f^rhapsj all that is wanted for soldiers, bu| it is the very opposite to what goe^ to make the successful tradesman^ the ingenious artisan, the prosperous colonist. A.nd it is »o teply tosaj| that the method works toloiablll well abroad. On the Continent thm system of government differs vetf] much less from the military syste^i in vogue there than it would in! England. In both cases abroal,! the paternal spit-it leavens ihsj whole, and trade and industry hauls to have " iicho r or molten golffl infused into their veins periodical!^ by a providential governm»nt, sl^ [they would pine away and die] 'Moreover, in barracks the soldief| often unoccupied, leads an es.isten^ of idleness, the^oal of which seeni to be to kill time " pieasanfcly"-^ [not to employ it profitably. Thu li-a hardly the kind oi schooling thai fits a. young man for a successf^ eon»seroial career. Aversion k work on the one hand, aiif dependence upon a paternal govern! raenfc on the other, would rmfy [have make Great Bdfcai« a Worl| Power, and will not keep lier x>n| But they are precisely the element! of tbe mental and moral soil whi| Continental demagogues find-ll uncommonly fruitful when fcbeyOT about sowing the seeds of dn affection, to governments and h&bfl to classes. "jH