THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1915. THE DUTY OF THE CITIZEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15930, 29 May 1915, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1915. THE DUTY OF THE CITIZEN.

The people of the United Kingdom are gradually awakening to the fact that a state which cannot call great armies to its defence •in grave national emergency is doomed to fall victim to any. dominating military power as long as aggressive militarism is allowed to exist in the. world. The wholesale enlistment of patriotic volunteers and the desperate efforts by- which ,these heroic volunteers /have enabled the Allies

to stem the tremendous tide of German invasion on the Continent, has steadily influenced public opinion towards a better appreciation of the duty of, the citizen. As long as only a fey were soldiers, fighting in defence of one's country was generally regarded as a specialisation of effort and as no more # incumbent upon the average man than watchmaking or school-teaching. But as the British Army grew in response to the extraordinary need, as the' loyal and. the patriotic flocked to the recruiting offices and passed into the training camps, as regiment after regiment of the " territorials" reached the fighting line and proved as steady and reliable as the " insignificant little army" itself, the British nation began to understand that the duty so valiantly discharged by the volunteer army was a duty incumbent upon every able-bodied man in ! the British Isles. Soldiering ceased to be a specialisation. To train and fight and, if need be, to die for one's country became visible as the common obligation because visibly the common lot of all worthy citizens. Whereby a virile'public opinion took root and grew in the United Kingdom, a public opinion which remembered that ihe greatest and most loved of Victorian soldiers had given the last years of his strenuous life to the advocacy of universal training in the land he loved so well. Side by side with the increasing national need this public opinion shaped and developed, until to-day it is within practical politics that the new National Cabinet will demand of Parliament the enactment of universal service as the only practicable means of ending effectively this terrible war:

The British War Office, needing more men, has to implore the manhood of- the endangered nation to provide 300,000 more recruits. The German War Office, needing 3,000,000 more men, simply calls out the reservists classed in certain given years. It is absurd to say that the German soldier is a pressed man while the British \soldier is a volunteer, for these " pressed men" have overrun Belgium, and if not beaten to the ground will overrun Britain as well. Belgium fell to German aggression, wt because she was wrong but be:ause she was weak; she was cspeciilly weak in that she had not enorced universal training and thus ould- not call her .million men of ighting age into the field to hold German onrush while the Allies

mustered to her aid. Franco in danger can place, millions on the battle lino; Italy can send a million, men to the front and treble that number if her need' becomes great; even little Servia can hurl back an Austrian .host by the unaided thrust of her soldier-citizens ; only mighty Britain begs her sons to shoulder a- rifle, and leaves it to them to respond or to ignore. The result in Britain is that those who are most eager to do their duty are left to do it, while those who are equally capable of doing their duty are allowed to look stupidly on. Yet there are so many doing their duty as citizens that their example and their influence pervades the entire population and makes possible a compulsion which in ordinary times would be repudiated by the politicians. The United States in the last years of her great Civil War felt the same need, the same influence and the same J national temper. The American need was not as great, nor was the influence exerted as great, but when Abraham Lincoln called for more men and found volunteers lacking, compulsion was promptly rosorted to and in spite of " draft riots" the men were found. Britain needs men to-day— every man she can train and equip—and the demand for compulsory service, popularly termed " conscription," is growing day by day. In other words the United Kingdom at last contemplates a national mobilisation— dedication' of every energy and the calling of every citizen to the service of the endangered state.

We are too far from Home and British politics are in too molten a state for any concise judgment to be formed upon the rapidly and constantly changing situation in the United Kingdom. It can only bo said with confidence that Britain is clear'.y rousing herself at last and that when Britain makes up her national mind it is ever to good purpose. We can see also the process of thought by which even the United Kingdom is working towards the compulsory recruiting of every suitable man not actually needed for and engaged in the auxiliary operations and industries, for we have the same trend of national thought in midst. The home-staying British are bound by customs and traditions relaxed with us, but still strong with us, so strong that we still permit many to " shirk" their duty while our' soldier-men are fighting for us and dying for us at the Dardanelles. The United Kingdom is being driven to " conscription" because the thunder of German guns I has been heard seaward in Kent, because German piracy .haunts the English and Irish seas, because it is becoming evident ' that only by utmost-. exertion can German militarism be broken for over. And what of us 1 If Britain falls we fall, for only an unconquered and unconquerable Empire can protect lis from the fate of Belgium; and if the Empire needs men it is as much our duty to provide them as it is the duty of our kinsmen at Home. In any case: Are we doing our duty? One man in every twenty of the population of the United Kingdom has volunteered and now they talk of conscription; one man in* every twenty New Zealanders would be Fifty Thousand men.' That is the least wo should offer and raisehowever we raise them.