CONSCRIPTION UNPOPULAR

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 9

CONSCRIPTION UNPOPULAR

LONDON, June 10. The League discussed a proposal to recommend brancnes to press for legislation in the event of war, providing for conscription of propertv and persons. Ma jor-Oeneral C'oflin, of Ceylon, said that Britishers would not look at anything labelled conscription. Ho advocated that the income and person of every citizcn should be taken for the service of the State at military rates of pay. If a man did not want work at home on private's pay. he could go to the front, and Tommy Atkins would deal effectively with him. Mr. Fraser East said that Australia had twice rejected conscription at referendum*. but he supported the idea of the whole nation's resources being at the Government's disposal in wartime, each community deciding the best method of doing it. The Dsal was defeated on the eround that it was too political. Colonel Xaugle, Newfoundland, opposing the resolution in favour of co-opera-tion with the American comrades, declared that it is wrong to imagine that the United States was an Anjrlo-Saxon nation. Only twelve to nineteen per cent of the people were Anglo-Saxon. America was not pro-British only, but raised the question of limitation of naval armaments because the increase of the tighteen inch beam of their ships would make it impossible for the shirs to traverse the Panama Canal, forcing the T'nited States to keen separate Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The resolution was carried.— (A. and >.Z. and Svdnev ' S'in. v t