COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16992, 20 October 1915, Page 8

COMPULSORY SERVICE.

PROSPECTS IN BRITAIN.. AUSTRALIAN VISITOR'S VIEW: |Trom Our Correspondent.] AUCKLAND, October 19. An opinion as to the probability of compulsory service being adopted in England was sought from Sir Thomas Ewing, who as Minister of Defence, introduerd the Compulsory Training Bill in the Federal Parliament of Australia. Sir Thomas was in Auckland while the Vancouver boat was stopping in port. _ “ In my opinion,” said the visitor, “ there is no doubt whatever that England is getting probably all the men she wants. I should say that three millions is a mild estimate of the number of men under arms. to me it seems very reasonable also to think that tho shortage in the supply, ot munitions is also being got over. Whether it would be wise to introduce the principle of compulsory service in the midst of a war Sir Thomas' was not quite sure, but tlxat it should have been done years ago and that it would eventually come he had no doubt whatever. He' said _ that generally speaking ho thought, in common 'With a largo • nunibir of men in England, that the people should be made to realise that the protection of the country was the duty of every one and that it should not be left to some families to send all of their sons, while other families sont none. “ It is manifestly unfair,” ho added, “that one man should go out aiid do all the fighting while tho other, so to speak, stops and looks after the camp.” , .... Speaking of compulsory military training Sir Thomas remarked that in Australia., and doubtless in New Zealand too, the average boy leaving scliool would understand the control and use of a rifle. On the other hand an English lad usually regarded a rifle as an intricate piece of machinery, and it would, there fore, be infinitely mom difficult to train the Territorals of England when they were precipitately rushed into the training camp by the unanticipated outbreak of war. “ Take one little example of unproparedness and want of foresight in England,” he proceeded. “ A few years before the outbreak of war the number of men producing warlike stores at Woohvich Arsenal was, by way of economy, reduced from 24,000 to 8000, and whether it be true or not, it is stated that many of these retrenched experts actually went oyer to Krupps. Under her free trade policy England was losing her power of making anything. She had ceased to he self-supporting, and had to seek all over the world to find people to carry oil tho making of munitions, and, in many cams, they came from remarkably warlike sources. If Germany liarl had the sense to leave England aloijo for another quarter of a century she wou’d probably have found a nation that under free trade was capable of tnak'ng very little, hut she did not, and England is profiting by the lesson. If, instead of being ten times as numerous, the Germans had had only two or three times as many ns the British (about 62,000). at the Marne, and if we had been armed in anything l ; ke the same way, Sir Thomas considers that the Germans would not be in Belgium to-day. Thrufc, he said, was one of the penalties of unpreparedness. The visitor added that there was a general feeling in England that the placing of the country under the virtual control of Lord Kitchener had been the salvation of the situation. The recent attacks on the Minister of War were generally regarded as a mistake, and. as far as one could see, military affairs were very satisfactory.