The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1927. LABOUR OUT OF STEP

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 92, 9 July 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1927. LABOUR OUT OF STEP

IT is reported from Wellington that Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P., will introduce to the House of Representatives a Bill to repeal the Compulsory Military Service Act. If the Labour member for Auckland East be at all amenable to candid advice, he will make pipe-lighters of the rough draft of his measure and, idly smoking, will meditate on the folly of attempting to abolish a system which, even at its worst in practice, does nothing but good. Whatever the intention of the honourable member may be in relation to a national policy of the first importance, it is bound to be misconstrued as another bad example of Labour disloyalty, as still another exercise of Socialistic pandering to the pacifists. In reality, of course, it would be nothing' of the sort, but the political opponents of Labour would not pause in fairness to recognise the true motive of the measure. The fact that the sponsor of the Bill has been maimed in active service for his country and experienced all the rigours of war while many of his critics stayed at home and profiteered with ardent and alert enthusiasm—the spurious patriots have not yet been forgotten—would not shatter their assertion and oblique argument that the soldier had become the wild Socialist, without love of country and without loyalty to the Empire King. A hundred halls would ring with electioneering vituperation against “a Bill designed to deprive New Zealand of efficient defence against a covetous horde out of the East.” And there would be endless talk about the menace of war in the Pacific and all the other impressive jargon of the jingoists.

Why precipitate a spate of nonsense about disloyalty and disordered Socialism at all? Let political Labour agree in pleasant imagination to believe that the mood of the nations is for a lasting peace, that, indeed, there will be no more war in our time, and then, in open-eyed judgment, assess the national value of compulsory military service as an aid to peace, as an admirable means for strengthening the physique and character of the youth of the Dominion.

If that course were taken honestly by Labour and pursued with all Labour’s passion for facts, we feel confident that it would, in support of the disciplinary benefits of military service, be “as terrible as an army with banners flying.” It may be that the present cost of compulsory military training is much too high in New Zealand to-day, and that the system is overloaded with tabs and brass hats, but these extravagances and snobbish fripperies could be eliminated without, recourse to abolition of the Act. Its repeal would mean the loss of essential discipline, and the encouragement, of loutishness in the young manhood of the Dominion. Mr. Lee. would do well to burn a foolish Bill on the sacrificial altar of political wisdom, and concentrate his parliamentary service on an effort to secure economy in the Defence Department by cutting out expensive trimmings.