Liberty and Compulsory Training.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 72, 26 July 1912, Page 8

Liberty and Compulsory Training.

Liberty has been authoritatively defined as consisting "in being able to obey our own will and conscience rather than tho will mid conscience of others."

Liberty has been placed in grava jeopardy in this country by the introduction of compulsory military .service.

All our youths from the age of 14 arc being compelled to take the degrading oath, reproduced elsewhere in this issue, in which they swear to abrogate their freedom of will and conscience and to obey the will and conscience of tho military authority.

This debasing oath makes clear what wo have iK>intod out on another occasion that the whole aim and end of military training is to create machines —intelligent automata—human beings who cannot obey their own will and conscience, but must obey the will and conscience of others. Military training is, therefore, subversive of personal liberty. That needs no argument—it is. undeniable. With personal liberty suffers social and national liberty. A "nation in arms," which is the avowed aim of the military party in New.. Zealand, cannot bo a freo nation. A "nation in arms" is, of course, an army nation, a 1 huge- machine, subject to the necessary laws and regulations o£ th« machine, aud, therefore, in iba last resort unable to obey its own will and conscience, but must obey the will and conscience of others.

The disastrous effects of developed militarism upon national liberty ar© all too evident whorevor the dcvela»meati has taken plaoo.

Are we going to allow militarism to develop in this country? If we do, we do so at our own gravo peril. If wo do we shall prove traitors to those who have gone before us, who bavo purchased our freedom of will and conscience, with their own blood, and traitors to those who will come alter vs —our own children—whose trustees we are.