GOD SPEED HIM.

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 50, 21 August 1915, Page 3

GOD SPEED HIM.

Make Him Go

EVERY Sunday, in every Anglican Church, the cleric says, "Give .peace in our time, O Lord," and the people answer, "Because there is none other that fightetth for .us, but only Thou, 0 God." It is said because it is a convention, a portion of the incomparable ritual, for there is no peace, and the united responses of the whole Of the peoples -of all the Empire's Christian ohurches does not slacken the red jrain or cause the Dawn, of Peace to dissipate the Night of . Terror. The ■euphemism, "God fights on the side •of the big battalions,''is attributed to Napoleon, whose big battalions were mere platoons compared to the vast aggregations of men whose sole lat present is to slay each mother. The sooner the slaying is .lone the sooner will come peace. In New Zealand the person who -theorised! on the wickedness of war ..and pretended he could settle international disputes by arbitration and .scraps of paper, has sent his son to the front and is silent. Nobody talks about acheiving peace except by war waged with every death dealing device known to science.

Bishops have counselled the sword. The fact is the bishop has advised us to kill the Huns, but not to hate them, and this is rather a strain. The other day Dr Sprott, Bishop of Wellington, said this: "There are fathers and mothers here to-night, .and if they are honestly to pass thi6 resolution (in connection with the prosecution of the war) they must not try to keep back that lad of theirs who might feel the call to fight for these ideals. They must nerve themselves to. it—God speed him and let him go." The best •of our young men, don't need to be -chased off the soil of New Zealand to Gallipoli. You can't keep them back. But in a very large number of oases one should alter the sendoff to "God speed him. Make him go." At a very late hour in this gigantic campaign the Government is to make a sort of man war census to ascertain what real fighting strength we have . If this organisation had been made a year ago, a great number of the men who nave .since been killed in Gallipoli would not have left New Zealand, but a "large number of drones would have l>een pushed out to take their The present war is being fought as much in Berlin and London, in Paris and Petrograd, in the capitals of the nations engaged, as on the bloody fronts of all the contending armies. The nation doesn't send Kitchener with a rifle to the front line of trenches. The nation wants his brain kept intact.

The appalling losses of the best young New Zealanders we have is the "best argument for universal compulsory service tbat could be raised. New Zealand has a larger proportion of drones than most countries,, and they are still entirely parasitical. The decent, smart, branny young men who go to Gallipoli die in Gallipoli for these drones, and the parasites are to be left to propagate -parasites and hangers on. We don't "believe tbat loafers and parasites <_and decadents are cowards. They

only lack the initiative. They like comfort when comfort is obtainable, and bate exertion. But they love life, and will fight like snakes to stay alive. Therefore send them where they can have the privilege of keeping by their own exertions. God speed them! Make them go! If this country is really to be organised for war, the large number of drones will be pushed out on to the field of battle, and large numbers of skilled workers and men of brain® drafted out of the physical fighting army back to the other great fighting army that "makes the bullets" for soldiers to fire.

The imperishable glory earned) by the troops in the battle field is to be shared by every man, woman and child who helped them to achieve it. Th© Old Country has not yet accepted conscription, the discriminating conscription which recognises the value of the soldier who fights m the workshop. Australia is already talking of this kind of conscription, and New Zealand might with perfect justice discuss it very seriously. Australia and New Zealand are being drained of the very smartest men they possess', and the drain should cease while it is still possible to push the drones out. It is time the drones were harnessed up, for sooner or later they will be a charge on the country. They should be made to show cauise why they are permitted to live while their betters willingly die for them. God. speed them and make them go!