COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 54, 4 March 1913, Page 7

COMPULSORY SERVICE.

(To the Edit jr.) Sir, —Notwithstanding that a terrible ! war is already raging, with every pros- j pect of a far vaster conflagration breaking out at any moment—a conflagration ■that would probably β-pell ruin to these islands, with, perhaps, wholesale murder ami violence thrown in as well—notwith- I standing these things, we, the small i«o- I la ted State, must have the beautiee of disarmament inceeeantly dinned into our ears by the peace agitator and faddUt, and so no leee than four lecturers have choeen the present time of anxiety and um-est to air their threadbare arguments once more. How bankrupt must be the cause that requires so many advocates to produce »o little matter. Just the same old nonsense about "military slavery," etc.; as if everyone .that had the β-mallepit epark of intelligence did not know that the greatest slaves on earth have invariably been found in nonmilitary communities. -No thraldom co complete, no slavery s-o utterly abject, as the slavery born from within. Aleo, for anyone to argue in a democratic country, and to a supposed democratic gathering, enioying the "benefits of compulsory legi&lation in other quarters, that such compulsion should cease in regard to the high pet of all the duties imposed upon the State, bespeaks a deplorable mental and moral outlook. No! •Let the Government continue the good work it has inaugurated, and also let each Territorial remember that the profession of arms is one of the nobleet to which any man or youth can be called; and this little country's ptatus ac a nation will be infallibly gauged by the devotion it shows for. or the measure of support it accords to, its Defence Act.— I am. etc.. DEFENCE.