COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14745, 26 October 1915, Page 2

COMPULSORY SERVICE.

WIDE ENGEAM) ADOPT IT? OPINION' OF SIR T. EWING. NOT DURING, HUT AFTER THE WAR. An opinion as to the probability of compulsory service being adopted in England was sought by a representative of the Auckland Star from Sir Thomas Ewing, who, as Minister of Defence, introduced the Compulsory Training Bill in the Federal Parliament of Australia. Sir Thomas was in Auckland while the Vancouver b >al was stopping in port. “In my opinion,” said the visiting knight, “there is no doubt whatever that England is getting probably all the men she wants. 1 should say that three millions is a mild fest Innate of the number of men under arms. To me it seems very reasonable, also, to think that the shortage in the supply of munitions is also being got over." Whether it would be wise to introduce the principle of compulsory service in the midst of a war, Sir Thomas was not quite sure, but that it should have been done years ago, and that it would eventually come, he had no ! doubt whatever. He said that, generally speaking, he thought, in common with a large number of men in England, that the people should be made to realise that the protection of the country was the duty of everyone, and that it should not be left to some families to send all of their sons while other families sent none. “It is manifestly unfair,” he added, "that one ma;; should go out and do all the fighting, while the other, so to speak, stops and looks after the camp.’’ Speaking of compulsory military training Sir Thomas remarked that in Australia, and doubtless in New Zealand too, the average boy leaving school would understand the eouttol and use of a rifle. On the other hand, an English lad usually tegarded a rifle as an intricate piece of machinery, and it would, therefore, be infinitely more difficult to train the territorials of England when they were precipitately "ushed info the training camp by the unanticipated outbreak of war. “Take one little example of unpreparedness and want of foresight in England,” proceeded Sir Thomas. “A few years before tile outbreak of war j the number of men producing warlike stores at Woolwich Arsenal was, byway of economy, ieduced from 24,000 to 8000, and, whether it be true or not, it is stated that many of these , retrenched experts actually went over to Krupps. “Under the free trade poliev England was losing her power of making anything. She had ceased to be selfsupporting, and had to seek all over the world to find people to carry on the making of munitions, and in many cases they came from remarkably warlike sources. If Germany had had the sense to leave England alone for another quarter cf a century she would probably have found a nation that under free trade was capable of making very little. But she didn’t, and England is profiting by the lesson" If. instead of being ten times as numerous, the Germans had had only two or three times as many as Hie British (about 62,000) at the Marne, and if we had been armed in anything like the same way, Sir Thomas considers that the Germans would not be in Belgium to-day. That, he said, was dne of the penalties of unpreparedness. The visitor added that there was a general feeling in England that the placing of the eounlry under the control of Lord Kitchener had been the salvation of (he situation. The recent attacks on the Minister of War were generally regarded as a mistake, and as far as one could see, military a f- j fairs were very satisfactory.