OUR MODEST DEFENCE ACT

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 17, 12 September 1912, Page 2

OUR MODEST DEFENCE ACT

THE SOCIALIST ATTITUDE

Dealing cleverly with a current topic “Givis,” in tho “Otago Daily Tirnc-s” writes as follows:

Under chemical analysis the objection of Socialists to our modest Defence Act and compulsory military training yields one part pure selfishness, three parts pure cusscdness. Wo arc serving out lethal weapons for use in the common defence. But—thanks no; the Socialist is “not taking any.” Ay me! what perils do environ

The man that meddles with cold iron, sai sho to himself, says ho. And wo aro left to infer that the Socialist more thah other men is concerned to keep a whole skin. I should have supposed that tho Socialist more than other men would bo concerned to get possession of a rifle and to learn how to uso it. At present what is mine is my own>j before it passes to tbo Socialist there will be crowns to bo broke, there will bo shots to be fired. I am that “animal tres mediant” of the French story-book—tbo animal that when attacked has the wickedness to defend itself. In this characteristic I am one with the farmer on his freehold, the shop-keeper behind his counter, the working man totting up his Savings Bank pass-book. The Day of Armageddon which the Socialist is plotting will declare it. Then why doesn’t ho learn to shoot?

He will not learn to shoot, he says, because “the idea has come from the capitalist.” Tin's delightful example of what the lAimericans call “cusscdness” I find in ah anti-militarist speech by Mr Semple, organiser of tho'jftny Zealand Federation of Labour. A most needful weapon is offered him and lie won’t have it;—-“the idea comes from the capitalist”! Neither shall his son have it:

Personally, he had a son who, was just coming of age—i.e., liable to serve—and so far as ho was concerned the defence authorities would have to walk over his own dead body before they would get the boy. Mr Semple, in short, is M. do Lesseps at Ismailia, when the British army was lauding in chase of Arabi, the said army having audaciously penetrated M. da Lesseps* Canal without leave or license. I quote from an article in Blackwood: M. do Lesseps sullenly watched from his office at Ismailia the immense fleet of transports defile before him; and when the troops began to disembark he is said to have taken up his position on the quay, crying out that no English soldier should land except over his dead body. A bluejacket, however, quietly pushed him aside, remarking, “We don’t want no dead bodies about here, sir; all you’ve got to do is to step back a bit.” In Mr Semple’s case some kindly policeman may possibly assist by an argumontum applied a posteriori, Just in tho place where honour’s lodged, As wise philosophers have judged; Because a kick in that place more Hurts honour than deep wounds before.