The Sun FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1917. WHY NOT CONSCRIPTION, MR HUGHES?

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1163, 2 November 1917, Page 4

The Sun FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1917. WHY NOT CONSCRIPTION, MR HUGHES?

i Whatever Australia may have done in the first two or three years of war to thwart German ambitions —and figures can be quoted to prove that she made a splendid showing—it is obvious that that good record is in a fair way to be smirched by the pitiable recruitments of the past nine months. Nominally the Commonwealth is supposed to maintain five divisions at the front—the number of men has been given at 100,000. When the conscription referendum was defeated, and the necessary reinforcements could be raised only by voluntary enlistment, the monthly quota was drastically reduced—from 10,500 to 7000. Soon it became evident that it would prove a difficult matter to collect even 7000 men fit for active service. The numbers enlisting fell away steadily, notwithstanding several very well-intentioned but unimaginative recruiting schemes devised by the Commonwealth Government and some of the States. The Prime Minister threatened to do many things to bring the "slackers" to a sense of their responsibilities, but, knowing Mr Hughes for a talkative politician, one whose words ever were better than his deeds, the "slackers" did not take alarm. Thus the world has been witness of the farcical spectacle of a Government vehemently beating the big drum to an audience which was mostly leaning heavily against the lamp posts or studying the picture programmes and race charts. Mr Hughes and his bloodless Minister of Defence, Mr Pearce, continue their bold front and their promises that Australia will do her part, but the unfortunate aspect of the whole sorry business is that she is doing a long way short of her part—in the matter of reinforcements. The Australians in the firing-line have earned undying glory. The tougher the work, the more daringly they approached it. As "shock" troops, the Commonwealth fighters have no superior in the war. Though reckless to a degree, they have rarely failed to do what they were set to do. And it is such men as these their country is leaving in the lurch. Defence Minister Pearce, speaking at a recruiting meeting the other day, said that during the past six months the enlistments were less than the casualties in a fortnight. Allowing for the inevitable exaggeration pardonable under the circumstances, that statement may be accepted as a fair indication of the extent of the failure of voluntaryism in the Commonwealth. The Australian divisions are not receiving anything like adequate reinforcements. That connotes little or no relief for the men in the trenches, and that, in turn, spells deterioration and warweariness. Probably the regularly recurring recruiting shortages has forced a reduction of the five divisions to four; the gaps created in every offensive must be filled somehow. And at this dubious stage of affairs, all the hope that the Commonwealth Cabinet can offer its heroes overseas is that, after considering the figures (referred to above) it will decide upon a policy! What shape that long-belated policy is to take is not indicated. It must follow one line if Mr Hughes can be persuaded that the war will be won by men and not by rhetoric: and that line is conscription. If the Commonwealth Prime Minister has sufficient courage he will reinstate the issue of compulsory service and push it with all his might. In no other way can Australia do her duty by her divisions. Voluntaryism in Australia has proved the broken reed we knew it in New Zealand, and its only alternative is conscription. Mr Hughes and his colleagues will have to cease considering the political consequences of reintroducing the question of conscription if Australia's good name is to be saved from further defacement. The signal defeat of militant Labour—the vanguard of the anliconscriptionist movement—in tin; recent lest of strength should encourage the Government to take the bold step of once more asking Australia to endorse compulsion in lieu of a hopeless voluntary system. What the country and the Government have to regard is the fact that the reinforcements must be obtained if Australia is to keep her proud place in the firing-line, that they are not being obtained, and that they never will be obtained so long as the choice of fighting or not fighting is left to the individual. Every argument that counts would be behind a move to make conscription the law of the land, and the Commonwealth Government will deserve the worst that could happen it if it temporises with the reinforcement question any longer.