LANCINGS FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1916. CONSCRIPTION MUST COME. Let Us Face the Inevitable.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 818, 3 March 1916, Page 8

LANCINGS

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1916. CONSCRIPTION MUST COME. Let Us Face the Inevitable.

Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by principle and unbribed by gain; Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw, Pledged to Religion, Liberty, and Law.

EOTH the Prime Minister and tlie Minister of Defence have declared that if voluntaryism fails conscription must come. Mr. Allen, indeed,' gives June 1 as the date upon which voluntaryism will be judged and found either satisfactory or wanting. Judging by present - appearances, the voluntary system is on its last legs. It is a sad confession for New Zealanders to have to make that a system which enlisted the splendid fellows who fought at Gallipoli should be doomed to failure. But so it is. Selfishness is no doubt responsible, to some extent, for the backness in coming forward now being displayed by our young single men. There are other causes at work in the astonishingly stupid obstinacy of the Government in not making the pension a matter of right and of introducing various irksome restrictions and regulations. Be this as it 'may, it is no use pretending any longer that voluntaryism is not day by day becoming more and more a failure. Conscription is' the one and • only way to get at the shirker. It is the fairest, most genuinely democratic system. Rich man's son, poor man's son, -Jack the wealthy merchant's son, and Tom the son of the poorest humblest worker —both go off the same mark. Why the Bed Fed. element, which is everlastingly deploring the inequalities of the present social system should so bitterly denounce and oppose compulsory service, in which is embodied the very essence of equality, is more than we can understand. Anyhow, whether the Red Fed. likes it or not, conscription is coming. It should have come long ago had not the Government been so afraid of offending a certain section of the community. Let the Government show a little more courage. It will have the vast majority of the people behind it in this matter, and in New Zealand majorities rule.