The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1909. NATIONAL DEFENCE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 144, 16 June 1909, Page 4

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1909. NATIONAL DEFENCE.

The Hon. It. McNab should be accorded ail enthusiastic reception this evening. The question of national defence is one that has "caught on" during the last few months, and to Mr McNab's untiring efforts in promoting the movement much of its success is due. In a vague sort of way people have always recognised that the country should be defended, but the fact has never yet been brought right home to each individual that the duty of defence devolves upon himself. It is Mr McNab's selfimposed mission to impress this upon every man in the Dominion, and his propaganda has been remarkably successful. It would indeed be strange if such a self-evident proposition as that a man should defend his own hearth and home did not receive general acceptance. Everyone agrees with the principle; it is in the method proposed for carrying it into practical effect where disagreement arises, j The training of all to the use of arms is essential if those who are willing to defend their country are to be qualified to do so, and to make that training as effective as possible, and .ensure that the duty of defence shall fall upon all alike, a certain measure of compulsion is necessary. ' But where the advantages are so appar- ' ent, and the objects to bo attained are so vitally essential, the compulsion exercised should rather be tli'at derived from the impelling instinct

of self-preservation. Compulsion from within, arising from each man's sense of his obligation to his family and his country should be the motive power stirring him to action. The legal compulsion necessary to regulate the . movement, and provide for its systematic working, would have no ler-J rors for a man whose sense of duty dominated every other consideration. ! Very little sympathy will be felt ior' the few who profess to object to compulsory training on the ground that it is an interference with the liberty of the subject. This is the principal objection urged against the movement, and it is an argument that will not hold water. In no community where the interests of all in common are held superior to the ideas of the individual is liberty allowed. Everyone must comply with the laws of the country, or the regulations of the town in which he. resides. He must sink his own predilections for the general good. He is not at liberty to do countless things which he would do readily enough if ho only had himself. to consider, and if for the public welfare he is restricted in his liberty in the many small concerns of his daily life, how much greater is the need for regulating his conduct, by compulsion if need be, in a matter which affects his national existence ? A training to the use of arms is essential if we desire to make any method of defence effective, and a general system of training can only be carried out on a compulsory basis. It; is amusing to read th© feeble efforts to discredit this principle made by those who oppose it. At a meeting in Wellington a few nights ago a number of long-winded orations were made against the obviously sound proposal that a nation should be trained to the use of arms in order to be placed in a proper defensive position. A search through the reported speeches fails to reveal any sound argument in opposition. Such phrases as that a general system of training would be "subversive of the free rights of citizenship"; it would be a "constitutional outrage' 5; "the man who wanted to fight was a bully," were plentiful enough, but of solid reasoning against the proposal there was none. One speaker described Mr McNab as "the Mad Mullah of Conscription," but there is certainly a method in his madness which we fail to discover in the idiotic outpourings of the opponents of his proposals. These people, have not yet told us what they would do, or what would happen to them if an enemy was thundering at our gates, and rifles were put into their hands which they did not.Jknow how to use. This is the question which has to be answered, and no amount of sophistical oratory can divert the minds of thinking men from the plain issue. If any proof were desired of the necessity for compulsion, it exists in the singular attitude adopted by a noisy section of the community towards a system which proposes to afford adequate protection of lives and property to those who object, equally with those who endorse the proposal. ..-;...