THE DEFENCE SYSTEM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10536, 10 August 1912, Page 6

THE DEFENCE SYSTEM.

10 THE EDITOR. Sir, —May I be permitted to write a few words in reply to tho article published in the "Mother's Corner" of tho "Star" last Saturday? The argument of the ," Christchurch Woman Well Fitted to Instruct Her Fellow Women," and presumably the children whom New Zealand has pressed into its child army, must not (with your permission) be allowed to pass unchallenged, as great and grave issues hang upon their truth or Falsehood. " Our very existence as a people," says the lady, "depends on our naval superiority." Surely the existence of the peoples of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland, without naval superiority, attest to the incorrectness of this statement, as also does the fact that these nations excel in their national wealth and credit. Tho lady lives mentally in the belated past. Europe is no longer peopled with barbaric, nomadic hosts, which put every enemy to the sword. Norman Angell, one of the acutest thinkers of our times, has shown that even were England successfully invaded by another Power, England would still retain her identity, as the population could not be put to the sword, nor could her trade be destroyed without the destruction of that of the invader also.

Further, your authority continues, "that the safety of each unit of the Empire requires a thoroughly well organised force of its own, sufficiently strong to protect tho land frontiers, to co-operate with an allied power, to carry war away from our islands into, the enemy's country." Now, to many it is clear enough that if the hypothetical enemy arrived in New Zealand he must come in battleships, and would shell most of our towns without landing. A land force would bovery little protection to such an invading force. If, as is asserted, England's safety lies in the Navy, much more should it be true of New Zealand. The real reason for the raising of the military force is, as the lady says, to train our men and boys to carry on war elsewhere, according to the will of,the Imperial authorities. Our own defence is the argument advanced as a blind to the people. The actual intention is that, in case of the outbreak of a capitalistic war, the Imperial authorities may mobilise 30,000 Now Zealanders. Now, the creed of the Imperial authorities is Imperialism, which means a supreme military dictator, which means the amassing of mighty armies, which means foreign campaigning, "which means spoliation of the workers and degradation of women, which means licentiousness and luxury for the dominating olasses, which means enervation of the fibre and sinew of the people, which means national decay, which is the antithesis of the ideals of democracy. The voluntary system, curtly dismissed as being " defective in training, organisation and equipment," in a country which Sir J. Ward boasted, before the bestowal of his honours, would never tolerate conscription, certainly never had an eye-to-eye agreement with the " Chief of tho Imperial Staff." Hence the necessity to make the training "compulsory and universal, _ and hence we must suppose " tho terrible catastrophe" that has compelled us " to adopt conscription." To emulate Germany, "the greatest military power in the world/" whose young men live in camps and barracks for several years, and "return home vastly improved in physique and intelligence," is, then, the writer's ambition for New Zealand. Let us hope the ambition is not widely shared by New Zealanders, for it is well known that to avoid conscription, many of the finest young men of Germany annually leave their native land, never to return; that brutality is rife, in tho amy; that many maim themselves rather than undergo the cruelties exercised by their Buperior officers; that suicide If or the same reason is on the increase; that prostitution is legalised; that the military caste flouts the civilian; that drunkenness is prevalent; that duelling is practised: that the war tax is appalling; that in Berlin alone one-fifth of the children. attending school are physical degenerates. Nor is this all the indictment. To the conscript army its Imperial Chief, who voices the opinion of all other "chiefs of the Imperial staff K " says:— "I may call upon you to shoot down or bayonet your own relations, father and mothers, sisters and brothers. My orders in that respect must be executed cheerfully and without grumbling. You must do your duty, no matter what your hearts' dictates are."

_ Further, your writer lauds conscription in' France as giving to the Frenchmen "the time of their lives." A slang phrase is doubtless the equivocal method of expressing what in a Frenoh Nationalist leader's words compulsory military service is. " Far from being a sohool of morals," says this authority, " it is a school of drunkenness, of idleness and debauchery. It has gone a long way towards ruining our peasantry, and to a large extent it lia3 already debased tbcni." Another ITrenchman has stated that "it is the school of all the vices." A famous Frenoh preacher said, " The family in France gives to the army a young man, clean in mind and body; the army gives back that same young man steeped to the very lips in debauohery, suffering from disease and degrading vices." Such testimony flashes a lurid light upon "the time of their lives."

The fact that our youths are so far let off with too light training is food for sad reflection to your authority, but the age of the young conscript in New Zealand is at least matter for consolation. In the thinking of thousands of New Zealand women our Parliament has done its, worst to our children, who aro forced to begin thenmilitary training at twelve years of age. While .their young minds are yet plastic, our boys are initiated into " butcher's work," for such is Kipling's euphemism for militarism. If, at their own or their parent's instigation, they refuse to take the oath compelling obedience to the military authorities till the age of thirty, tiiey are fined, imprisoned, deprived or their political rights, debarred from the Civil Service, and classed a3 felons and criminals for the rest of their natural life.

Against such a law we " faddiste, ignorant, unpatriotic, selfish, cowardly, socialistic persons" intend to agitate and to continue to agitate till New Zealand has wiped it from her Statute Books. The lady is welcome to her epithets. They are at best but poor weapons for argument. Tho appeal for conscription is next made on behalf of our "national physique." Our children "are inferior, far below the average European standard." » Well, if this is not a libel on parents and children in New Zealand, 1 should like to know what is. Our children, as a whole, are among the healthiest and most beautiful children in the world. The children of Europe cannot compare with them. That they need physiculture and wise discipline who will deny, but certainly as Europe proves, conscription is not the gateway to perfect physical health and fim> mental and moral development.

Your authority further pursues the even tenor of her way by doubting whether the time of training is long enough. She knows right well that the military authorities do not think so, and if we as mothers are not alert camp and barrack life for our vouth will be the noxt act of a ocneacotit "State" which provides " monev, officers, machinery, education" und requires nothing else from the people but "spirit." It is to be hoped that the people will afford the "spirit." It might surprise "the General Staff," who seems to have got hold of a similar idea of the State as Louis XIV. had. For the information of the "General Staff" in a democracy the people are learning to know themselves to be the State, and also to know that they supply the money and

other needful etceteras incident to militarism. The writer concludes her glorification of soldiery by appealing to women to scorn the men who would follow the paths of peace. On the contrary, it is to these men we must look to give us the type of statesman of whom Mrs Elizabeth Barrett Browning dreams, whose heart is too large for his country, having courage to say, " Tins is good for your domination, but it will profit nothing to the general humanity." When a man shall arise who dares to spjfak so and when the public applauds him speaking, "then shall the nation be glorious, and her praise, instead of exploding from within from loud civic months, come to her from without, as all worthy praise must, from the alliances she has fostered and the populations she has saved."—l am, etc., ADA WELLS.