The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1916. CONSCRIPTION DEMOCRATIC IN PRINCIPLE.

Southland Times, Issue 17633, 18 January 1916, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1916. CONSCRIPTION DEMOCRATIC IN PRINCIPLE.

At the Unitarian Church in Wellington on Sunday last, Professor Mackenzie, a brother of the late Sir John McKenzie, put forward in a very clear and logical address the proposition that conscription is essentially Socialistic. The Professor claimed to be a Socialist because he believed that it is essentially a function of the State so to direct things that every heaJthy, normal, well-intentioned member of the community, whose conduct and character have stood the usual social tests, shall have an opportunity afforded him of making the most of such I mental endowments and acquired accomplishments as he possesses. The great ideal was that the reciprocal relations of the individual and the State should be put on as equitable a basis as possible, but the Professor protested that the so called Democrat or Socialist was too often concerned entirely with the State’s right to the individual. Here, the Professor struck home. We all know the type of Socialist he referred to. He is never tired of telling the people what the State ought to do for them, he knows all about his “rights as a citizen and a taxpayer,” he lias large ideas about his claims on the Government and on other people, but he rarely gives any

attention in his addresses to the duties of the individual to the State, which are the necessary counter part of the State's duties to the individual. Where the individual has rights against the State, he must acknowledge corresponding duties to the State. His claims against the State necessarily imply obligations to the State. That was the point which Professor Mackenzie brought our clearly, and this is how he followed it up. “Taking it, therefore, that the State, where (as with us) constitutional government obtains, honestly seeks to the best of its power and ability to direct things not in the interests of the few, or even the many, but rather in the interests of all, we cannot dispute the State’s right to call, if need be, on the individual citizens, the beneficiaries of rational and constitutional rule, to help the State with personal sendee, or such other aid as the State may deem expedient. A rational Socialism, I make bold to affirm, demands that much. Socialists should, therefore, I say, be conscriptionists.” Of course, conscription in this sense does not not simply mean military service by those who are able to render it; it means also a rendering of service by each citizen according to his capacity. From some the State has the right to exact service in the military forces; from others service in a civilian capacity; from others a portion of their wealth. While the State has the right to say to one man; “You must take up arms and fight for your country," it has the right to say to another; “You must give up, a tenth, a quarter or a half of all you possess in order t,o maintain the armies in the field.” The argument for conscription is, as we have often tried to show in this place, perfectly sound. Compulsory service is the most democratic form of military sendee there is. Apart from that, it is the only effective form of military service for a nation in Britain's position to-day. But the Empire is rapidly becoming conscriptionist not because of the soundness of the principle of conscription, but because of the relentless pressure of the facts of the war. Mr John Redmond withdrew the opposition of the National Party to Mr Asquith’s Compulsion Bill because he discovered that in England there was a ten to one majority in favour of conscription. That majority will grow, and if the war lasts there will be a majority In Ireland also. In New Zealand, we believe, there is already a large majority in favour of compulsion, and in Australia and Canada the feeling cannot be otherwise. And the reason is just this: that as the number of men in the field increases, as the losses increase, as the sacrifices made by individuals increase, the distribution of service and suffering under the voluntary system is seen to be so palpably unfair and unjust that the position becomes intolerable. Every man who goes to the front, the Hon. Dr. McNab has said, leaves a family of conscriptionists behind. That is perfectly true, and in addition to the soldiers’ families every man and woman whose interest is confined purely to the natural love of a fair and square deal becomes a conscriptionist also. We have stated Professor Mackenzie's argument as supporting and strengthening what has frequently been stated in these columns, but argument is really not necessary. The war is doing its own work. There is already a majority for compulsion and the majority will grow.