STIMULATION OF RECRUITING

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22905, 29 December 1939, Page 3

STIMULATION OF RECRUITING

TO THE EDITOR Of THE PRESS. Sir, —I see Colonel P. C. Fenwick and Messrs Williams and Weston are advocating a form of “moral blackmail.” It would be interesting to know whether these gentleman have any sons eligible for active service. They are of course entitled to their own opinions, but I would not care to be instrumental in advocating or seeking to implement measures that would compel other people’s sons to go to war. If I did take such a stand, I would always feel that I had thereby made myself responsible for whatever may happen to them. Should a referendum be decided on later for conscription, I trust the power to vote will be confined to youths and men of enlisting age, and to their parents or guardians only. Ido not believe in “press-gang” methods in any shape or form, but in the supreme right of the individual to choose what he will do with his own life.

A fighting soldier’s motivating impulse is surely not as we are so often led to believe, the willingness to lay down his life for —whatever he does lay it down for, but to lay down as many other lives as 1 - must, though he stands, of course, a big chance of losing his own in the process.—Yours, OtC " D. NICHOLSON. December 28, 1939.