Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1915. COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXV, Issue 9155, 1 June 1915, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1915. COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Evidence. is accumulating day by day that universal service is inevitable, and that to further delay the inauguration' of the system simply means the prolongation of. tile war and the needless sacrifice of thousands of valuable lives. All ilie talk of six months back that Germany had called up her last reserves, that the civil population was on the verge of starvation, arid that the enemy's supply of. shells and ammunition was nearly depleted, has proved to be without the slightest foundation. To-day, at the end of the tenth month of the most stupendous war the world has ever known, the' Germans' defensive and offensive are as strong and determined as ever, though they are fighting on two huge fronts and losing men at more than double the rate of their opponents Experts agree that the only way to crash the Germans is to oppose them with a force equal in numbers to their own, and as well equipped with guns and ammunition. The military authorities at Home state that there are in Great Britain 8,000,090 men of military age who have not yet joined the colours, and the time has arrived when these men should be compelled to shoulder their responsibilities. In a letter to the rf Time's," Lord Milner declared that :" nine-tenths of thelhitches, delays, blunders, and widespread uneasiness arid discontent tire due to the fact that the country still clings to the voluntary system." The "Times" is vigorously advocating compulsory service, and says "it has taken long months of slaughter to awaken. the nation to the immensity of the task before it, and the immensity of the effort demanded, which can only be accomplished by Britain's whole, strength, disciplined, marshalled, and co-ordinated on all sides, both military and civil." It would thus seem clear that the whole Empire waite for the new Government's call. The bogey of a military caste, which has been the bugbear of the antimilitarists, and their most powerful lever in opposing anything in the shape of compulsion, dissolves into thin air when confronted with a comparison of the conditions existing in the British Empire and those which predominate in Germany. Over. 30 years of Prussian military methods have ingrained in the German nature a profound and ineradicable belief that the nation's destiny is world domination, and that the reason for each German's ■ existence is that he shall : assist in the realisation of that ideal by becoming a soldier. And since' to be a German soldier* implies the most rigorous adherence to discipline, it follows that the sleeping and waking thoughts of the German recruits, as of the German* civilian, are bounded by an horizon of uniforms, and guns, and ammunition. The freedom j of the Press is limited to nonmilitary subjects, as the Zabern incident plainly proved; and so the circle of subordination of all ideals to military needs is complete. In Britain, the conditions are totally opposed to a Ziibernised military system.. Monarchic in its very marrow bones, the Empire is more democratic than America itself, the model democracy; and with a Press unfettered, the vox populi is the major note. •.,■.-.No abuses of militarism would be allowed to exist beyond ,th"fe'<: first- hour's knowledge of them, a.fifl so that fear falls to i the ground. But, in any ca-se, [ the needs of the moment are too pressing to permit of any speculation as to the possible evils that may follow such a readjustment o.f our defence methods. The fact to be fa^ed is that manythousands of men are needed and that they can only be obtained by compulsion. What is the. use'*therefore, of attempting to evade the inevitable, ?