CONSCRIPTION VITAL

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 99, 26 April 1917, Page 7

CONSCRIPTION VITAL

BRITAIN'S LESSON TO THE

UNITJED STATES

VQLTJNTABYISM THE CAUSE OF \.

.GREAT DELAYS. 4? . (AttITRUIAH-NBW ZEALAND CAILK ASSOCIATION.)

WASHINGTON, 24th April.

Lieutenant-GeneraL Bridges, of . tho' British mission to tlho United States, declares that conscription ia vital to the United States before tho nation can have any success in war. Tho volunteer system in England 1 retarded and d-elayed every phase of wrtr development. Voluntaryism sent trained artisans and industrial workers into the trenches when they were badly needed at home, and left at home those needed the front. Conscription at the ! beginning of the war would have obviated the difficulties in connection with munitions as well as many other vital mistakes. » 1 The duty of the Allies now was to speed up the war. The British pboplo had been entirely won to conscription, and were even fanatical upon the subject. They had opposed it only because they did not know what it meant. They now looked to" conscription as a business way of making war. Lord Kitchener's volunteer recruiting was tho innocent cause of retarding Britain'^ war pvogresS, because without Lord Kitchener's scheme there would havo been a, breakdown in voluntaryism earlier, and conscription would have been earlier introduced. Lord Kitchener's very success supported voluntaryism for '• long time, - ' .