MR McCOMBS AND CONSCRIPTION.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15746, 13 November 1916, Page 5

MR McCOMBS AND CONSCRIPTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF "jUF. PRESS." Sir, —In reference- to the scandalous proposal to bo placed before tho City Council on Monday evening by Mr James McCombs. wherein lie asks the Council to guarantee the wages of sixty recruits, I beg to suggest that during Monday every ratepayer who objects to the proposal should send a written communication to the Mayor, setting ont in strong terms his or her opposition to the said scheme. I further suggest that as many citizens as possible should assemble at the Council Chambers on Monday evening, at 7.15, and, after appointing one or more speakers, the deputation wait upon the Council for the purpose of lotting the members know tnat the citizens of Christchurch aro in opposition to the proposal.—Yours, etc., LEX. November 11th. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE TRESS. M Sir,—l know it is quite impossible for a Tory paper to realise that the anticonscription vote in Australia was as much a blow' for freedom as any of the blows being struck by the Allies against Prussianism in Europe. There are, however, many eminent men, ordinarily considered sane, as heartily opposedT to conscription as the democracies of Australia and New Zealand. Dr. Clifford. tho eminent Baptist divine, speaking in tho City Temple, London, said: "Wo must guard our democratic liberties against tho attacks of State absolutism. If wo adopt conscription we can be Prussianised by our own want of insight and faith in freedom." Benjamin Kidd, tho eminent sociologist, has actually been converted to voluntaryism as the resnlt of this war, and has made a very powerful statement on tho question. I know all this sounds strange to a conscrip-tionist-at-any-price man, but what I think you ought to realise is that in arrogantly assuming that yonr view is the only patriotic one and that other views must not even be tolerated, you are acting in a most dogmatic and unreasonable manner. You might at least try to give some evidence of your sincerity in pleading for toleration and freedom. In your anxiety to shield the financial shirker, it is of no use your trying to burk the money question. Your scarcely concealed cynicism regarding the real monetary difficulties which confront many single as well as married men who are anxious to enlist will not help recruiting. Even your contemporary, the "Dominion," lias sufficient fairness to admit the position. It says: "Recruits have now to bo obtained from other sections of the community—from among those, who, while realising the urgency of the call, are neld back by ties of responsibility that cannot be ignored. 'ITie State has no right to expect these to enlist until they have a clear understanding icgarding the position of those dependent upon them." Similar views wore expressed by Captain Barclay, who was in charge of the recruiting office at the Wellington Tow n Hall In tho 1915 session of Parliament the Labour members demanded pensions by right for 'the widows and children of soldiers who had fallen at the front, and that demand was repeated in the Labour manifesto in January. Captain Barclay, in speaking on this subject, is.reported in the "Dominion" as saying: "If pensions were givto by right many men would come forward who at present were prevented. This he could say from his daily observation. The rectification of this defect in the Act would mean thousands of recruits." Then we have Captain Simson, a man who fought in the South African War. and a returned soldier from Gallipoli, who has been recruiting up and down this country. He says: "There are twenty thousand men here who aro physically fit but financially unfit who are anxious to go to the war." You can get these twenty thousand men if you do not demand from them that they sacrifice half their income in addition to risking life and limb in defence of the Emipre. Under a special Act of Parliament it is within the power of the municipalities to help in this matter, and all I am asking for is that the Christchurch City Council will make up the military pay for a given number of men to the amount which is being received, by the lowest paid Council employee who has enlisted and gone to the front. There if. surely nothing unreasonable in the suggestion that the stay-at-home patriots like you and me should be called upon to share the responsibilities of fit men who are willing to go to the front. I agree that the. proposed method of taxation through the rates is not- an ideal method, but it, is the only one within the power of local bodies to adopt. You mention the case of the widow who would have to meet a per cent, increase in her rates —in fact, the "poor widow" is a stock argument with you when any form of taxation is proposed, and you want to save the financial. but I ask you is tii< not a fairer proposition that all the ratepayers should help to share ths financial sacrifice than that jt should be thrown on the dependants of the physically fit men who go to the front? My proposal only means an increase of 2s Gd per annum on every £5 wortli of rates. We have not heard much from your paper about the poor widow who has livii to face a os Gd in tJio rx>un<J increase in the cost of living —not 5s 6d per annum. but os Gd on each pound spent on the necessities of life. I do not want the widows' half-a-crown per annum, I would rather take the whole of the war profits which are more than sufficient to meet the added cost, even if mv proposal were made to apply to all the soldiers and their dependants, as it should be. But as I .have already

said, it is only -within the power of the Council to proceed on the lines I have suggested. There is an historic precedent for my proposal, in the American Civil War. Conscription was adopted in 31 arch, 1863, to repair an blunder, and under the* law the quota from each district could be obtained by forced drafts, but the system actually resorted to after the conscription riots in Boston and Massachusetts was a voluntary one, the townspeople agreed to supplement the military pay by grants of 400 dollars to 600 dollars per recruit, the result being that when Jill the people shared the burden they eecured the necessary recruits. * S. V. Patten, lecturer on political and social science at the Pennsylvania University, in commenting on these facts, said: "Thus did democracy vindicate itself." In commenting on some of the articles in the English journals, he eaid: J see statements, about the American Army in our Civil War that misrepresent the facts. It is true, as has been stated, that from the beginning of the war it was possible for local authorities, through conscription, to obtaip. their quota of recruite. But i n practice this method failed, so that during the latter part of the war few instances of its use are on record. . . .

The chief objection arose from the dislike of volunteers to serve in the same regiment with the conscripts, and if the conscripts were put into regiments by themselves they proved worthless soldiers." _ ' The number raised under the Act of 1863 was 1,369,343, but the number of those compelled personally to serve was only 61,947, or 2.3 per ccnt. of the total forces raised by President Lincoln during the war. "We people in New Zealand taTk glibly of pledging the last man and the last shilling, but what wo are actually doing, or proposing to do, is to conscript the man at 5s per day, and make him risk his all —life and limb and health— in defence of. the Empire, -while wo borrow the shilling at high, current rates of interest on gilt-edged security, free from income-tax, and no risk. It is trUe that the individual owes a duty to the State, but it is also true that the State owes a duty to the individual, and I am convinced that just so soon as we are prepared to fulfil our national obligations to the' soldier and his dependants, we will get all the volunteers wo want, and from a military point of view one volunteer is worth ten -pressed men. It takes years of training to make a. good soldier out of -a conscript, whereas we have sent some of the best fighting material from these shores after only a few months' training, because the men, being volunteers, put 6omc enthjisiasm into their work. The Kaser will not wait for us to make good soldiers out of conscripts, let us therefore act with insight and retain our faith in freedom.—Yours, otc., J. McCOMBS | We hare referred to this letter in our leading columns. — Ed. "The Press."]