CAN YOU FIGHT?

Observer, Volume XXXVII, Issue 44, 7 July 1917, Page 3

CAN YOU FIGHT?

Yes—But I'm Married

SOME thousands of mature and middleaged New Zealand men are anticipating that injustice will be done them. All over the country, gentlemen who will form the Second Division if the war continues, have formed leagues in. order to teach the Government its duty to them. The bases of most Second Division arguments is that the young unmarried man should fight for the young married man, although the young married man and the older married man have more to fight for than the youngone. Perhaps the young man (or at least the normal young man) fight because it is his instinct. He allows no consideration to stop in his way. The potential soldier who piles up difficulties against serving is a poor reed for a nation to lean on. One loud person, who is making a large bid to be eminent in the Hall of Piffle, lately spoke out of his turn. He remarked that no Second Division man should be called 1 to the colours until all the First Division men in all parts of the Empire had been exhausted. He, in fact, threw out a S.O.S. signal for the man who wants to stay at home.

The ideal attitude of the State in time of war is that the individual doesn't matter and the State is paramount. The idieal attitude of any collection of British States is the Empire before everything. It doesn't matter to the Empire whether a man who kills a, German is an unmarried man or a married man with ten children—as long as the German is dead. The typical Second Divisionist (whom for some psychological reason, one cannot help associating with the National Reserve) exclaims, "What* will happen to the business of the country if I am called up?" To which a' typical State would reply, "It doesn't matter what happens to any business in N.Z. as long as N.Z. remains British. The British business of N.Z. is no good to British people if there is a German Government in Wellington." At bedrock, nothing but fighting men matter. Imports, exports (other than men) don't matter, families whose father is fighting, do not matter; pensions, allowances and pay do not matter if the Hun is not crushed. You can't crush him with Second Division Leagues, or Borough Council resolutions of any of the flabby devices politicians usually prescribe.

The State which takes power to compel men to serve in the Army, hrs the power to insist that any man shall serve, no matter what he may conceive to be his rights. He has no rights superior to the right of the State to remain. British. The Second Division very naturally exaggerates its own. importance. In-' many countries, Second Division Leagues would-not be tolerated. A Second Divisionist is a reservist— an unused soldier. There was never any reason why every man of military , age in N.Z. should not have

taken the oath to serve, and thus automatically be under • military law. Only for modern humanitarian considerations have modem governments paid, an extra price for the use of the worst of their soldiers. Here is the position. A government will, say, pay.' unmarried A 2s. a day and married B 4s.—the latter because he's married and not because he's the better fighter. l That's all the State wants the man for at present—just to fight.and kill Germans. The longer the war proceeds the greater the assumed importance of the men who expect to be some day called up. They are only important for their individual capacity to kill Germans. "We wont vote for you if you don't behave better to us than you. have behaved to all other soldiers," says the reservist. Votes don't matter; politicians don't matter; Ministers don't matter, if the war is not won. The question is not, "What shall we get for our sacrifice?" but "we must sacrifice ourselves for Empire.

We base our ideas of the justice of conscripting soldiers on the assumption that business and domestic life, such as we know it, should not be disturbed. N.Z. is the least disturbed country on earth, and it still struggles to remain on the old artificial foundations. Artificial foundations have been kicked fram under many countries and it is easily conceivable that if the war continues, N.Z. may go back to the pioneering days. Prosperity was then simply a question of enough food to sustain vigorous life. Today, prosperity is not counted in «trong bodies, but in strong purses. The war is to be won; by men— nothing else. To the State it does r>ot matter ultimately what the domestic condition of the citizen is, as long as he is fit to fight. The question is not, are yoxi married? How many children have you ? Do you know a politician? Can I scrape out of it? But "Can You Fight?"