COMPULSORY SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 96, 23 April 1917, Page 3

COMPULSORY SERVICE

A STIRRING SPEECH BY MR. L. M. ISITT.

In a speech which he made in Christchurch on Friday in support of Mr. Holland's candidature for re-election as Mayor of that city, Mr. L. M. Isitt, M.:P., dealt with the conscription issue. Mr. Isitfc said that' he could convince anyone who was not warped in judgment that conscription was not an inequitable and oppressive measure or a measure that served the capitalist and oppressed the worker. He himself did riot like conscription—he did not like war—but he would ask what it was that had.

changed him and others from voluntarists into conscriptionists. " I deserted voluntaryism," said Mr. Isitt, " because after it had been in operation three months we saw that instead of it being equitable and democratic it was the most inequitable and most undemocratic way of dealing with the position. I challenge you to deny any one of these points that I make. Voluntaryism is a net that catches all the noble', all the brave, all the chivalrous men in this Dominion and sends them to fight while it lets slip through its meshes all the wasters, all the cowards, and all the selfish men who are content to stay behind and let others fight for the defence of their liberties and their country., (Applause.) More thaji that, it leaves these degenerate weaklings to breed the future nation to occupy this land." The alleged danger of conscription to the worker was contradicted by Mr. Isitt, who said that the very fact that all men were trained under it, and that workers ■were numerically superior, would prevent conscription eveT becoming a danger to the working class. A selected class of soldiery under voluntaryism might become a danger, but conscription never. The most plausible objection to conscription of men was that there should .also be conscription of wealth. He was a firm believer in this. He made no secret that he was deeply disappointed with the half-hearted policy of the National Government. He did not think there had been anything like the stern and ruthless hand laid on war profits that should have been laid on them, nor the proper attention bestowed upon the cost of living. But it was a mad position to take up, especially for the working man whose privileges^,were bound up m the integrity of the' Empire, that because of these things we would not defend the Empire. There were economic disabilities that needed' remedy, but it was , madness not first of all to win the war and then resume the fight—in which he would join —for the rectification of evils. Whose fault was it that these ills existed? The workers had five votes to any other classes' two votes, and so soon as they would give up the-•" booze," tfte trots, and two-up and read and be true to themselves and to the measure of responsibility they had, they would cease to be led by the nose by a few agitators. (Applause.)