THE KING AS A STRIKER

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 13 July 1912, Page 9

THE KING AS A STRIKER

In a recent address in London Mr George Bernard' Shaw told his audience tnat he had been making a close and earnest study of military law, and amongst the offences for which a soldier could be punished with death was using words creating despondency " Anyone who incited a soldier to use such words was liable to penal servitude •VI ?,\ "You may meet a soldier tonight, he said, "and what are the subjects which will naturally\arise in conversation? The coal strike and the weather. Is is possible to discuss those subjects without creating in the soldier a feeling of despondency? The soldier goes to his barracks, he uses the words which express the despondency which you have put in his mind. He is shot, and you are sent to penal servitude. Let us look ahead a little in view of the curious things that have lately happened in Parliament. The Prime Minister has recently made an extraordinary new departure. He has declared, m dealing with the Minimum Wages Bill, that it is impossible for Parliament to name a figure; that all it can do is to declare itself in favor of the principle of the minimum wage. The real gravity of this lies in the fact of its entire novelty. Parliament has always been engaged in naming figures of minimum wage. It will presently be asked to vote the minimum wage of the King —what is called the Civil List. Mr Asquith will then be compelled to rise up and say, 'It is impossible for us to do as we have done in the past. We cannot name the figure; all that we can do is to declare that we are in favor of the principle of the Civil List.' And our King will not know whether he is going to get £5 or £500,000. Consider what will follow on that. Suppose the King comes out on strike. (Prolonged laughter.) I take that to mean that you would be delighted to see him on strike. (Cheers.) "Well, consider my position if he did so. If I appealed to the soldiers not to shoot him I could be sent to penal servitude for life If I asked the soldiers to shoot him, I could be beheaded on Tower Hill for high treason." Mr Shaw concluded with a quaintly humorous protest against the dilemmas in which military law might involve himself and other peaceful citizens.