THE CAMPAIGN IN AUSTRALIA

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 239, 6 October 1916, Page 4

THE CAMPAIGN IN AUSTRALIA

The campaign for and against conscription in Australia, which is now in ■ full swing, is full of interest to people in this country. Both sides are working very hard. Mr. Hughes has thrown himself into the movement with all his I fiery energy. His manifesto to the nation is a finely worded appeal, clear i and impassioned, and it is really astonishing that any one calling himself a j patriot should be able to resist it. He declares that victory can .be achieved j only by a tremendous effort on the part of the Allies, that that effort must be made now, and that duty and interest alike point the way to Australians. " This is a war to the death, a fight to the finish. The future, of Australia and the hopes of Australian democracy hang upon victory. We are called upon to do our share in the great offensive against our enemy. We are not called upon to do more than our share, but our share we must do. As the strain becomes greater so we must endure more and endeavour more." Mr. Hughes makes good use of the stand taken by Lincoln, whose common-sense on this issue is a model to democracies for all time. " Men can be had only voluntarily or involuntarily," said Lincoln in defending the Conscription Act. " We have ceased to obtain them voluntarily, and to obtain them involuntarily is the draft —the conscription. If you dispute the fact, and declare that men can etill be had voluntarily in sufficient numbers, prove the assertion by yourselves volunteering in such numbers, and I shall gladly give up the draft The prin-

eiple of the draft, which simply is involuntary or forced service, is not new. It has .been practised in all ages of the world. Wherein is the peculiar hardship now? Shall -we shrink from the necessary means to maintain our free government? Are we degenerate? Has ; the manhood of our race Tun out?"

Tlie opponent* of conscription in Australia use the arguments which are familiar to all who have followed controversies on the question. Conscription is undemocratic; it is slavery; it is a device of the capitalists to bind the worker in chains. People who talk like that at this stage of the waT, are, We fear, beyond the reach of argument. It is a sad feature of the controversy that so many opponents of compulsion are still concerned about what they call their rights rather than their duties, that they argue 1 about it as if it were on the same fobtinf as Free Trade and Protection, or no I license and continuance,, ignorant or un- ' mindful of the tremendous issues at stake. As we said the other day, some of these anti-conscriptionists seem to be more intent on defeating Mr. Hughes than on winning the war. But there are other arguments. One is that Australia has done more than her share. It was gravely stated the other day by an Australfan bishop that the number of additional men for whom Mt. Hughes asked was so email compared to the many millions of the Allies that it was not worth introducing conscription to get them. I This argument is simply infantile. It is! just as open to Kent, or Yorkßhire, or Monmouthshire to use it as it is to Australia, and if every community in the' Empire had acted on the principle that the little it could do did not count, where would the Germans be to-day? Mr. Hughes has answered the "more-thah-our-s-hare" argument by pointing out that if Australia had done as well as Britain it would have an army of 500,000 instead of one of under 300,090. Another contention is that the referendum will be undemoeratically employed on this issue, because all voters will vote on a proposal to impose the risk of death on a limited number. This is quite unsound, for the defence of the country is the business of everybody in the country.

- -It looks as- if the controversy has split the Labour party beyond hope of repair, with profoundly important consequences to the political future of Australia. One of Mr. Hughes' colleagues in the Federal Ministry resigned because he could'not follow his leader on the conscription question, and his step has been applauded by several Labour organisations. The executive of the Sew South Wales Political Labour League has expelled the Prime Minister from the Labour movement, and withdrawn from the State Premier and two of his Ministers their endorsements as Labour candidates at the forthcoming elections. This has given rise to a controversy within a controversy, as to whether the League has the power to take such action, and, in the words of the Sydney correspondent of the •* Evening Poet," " the points of constitutionality are debated at considerable length, and with exhaustive examinations of phrases and clauses, in a manner suggesting quite grotesquely; that the point at issue is not national safety with all that it covers, but the correct interpretation of the rules of an irresponsible 'secret junta'"—this being the phrase Mir. Hughes himself applies to the League. A section of Labour is trying to expel from its political ranks all the members of Parliament who support Mr. Hughes, and there is talk of a new party. One glaring case of ingratitude is that of the Australian Workeife' Union and Mr. Spence, M.P. Mr. Spence was /the founder of this union, which is probably the most powerful in Australia, and no man has worked harder to organise the country worker and make him a power in the land. "The finest dd figure in the Labour movement in Australia," he has been called. But because Mr. Spence favours conscription he has been expelled by the executive. So much bitterness has been imparted to the controversy that it does not seem possible that party warfare can be resumed on the old lines. Mr. Hughes may find himself compelled to lead a new party on more national lines. No one would admit more readily than Mr. Hughes that the destruction of a party is the merest trifle when weighed against the issues involved in the crisis through which he is trying to steer his country.