Published: as number 3 in the ILP War Pamphlets Library of Penny Pamphlets, and as the second part of a work on Militarism and Conscription, printed for the Independent Labour Party by the National Labour Press, Manchester, 1915. Taken from the 3rd Edition.
Publishers' Note:
This series of pamphlets is published by the Independent
Labour Party to enable fair and just judgments to be made by
readers who have neither the time for long study nor the money to
buy big books.
Its aim is two-fold: (1) To enable the reader to understand the
causes of the War; (2) To prepare the way for the steps that must
be taken to secure a lasting peace.
Transcribed: by Graham Seaman for the Marxists' Internet Archive.
Last edited: June 2025.
Until the present war the National Service League, which was formed under the presidency of the late Lord Roberts in order to "popularise" the idea of compulsory military service, protested strongly against the accusation that its purpose was Conscription. The word "Conscription," they said, had "an ugly foreign sound" in British ears, and, besides that, what they advocated was not really Conscription as it exists abroad, but merely compulsory military training and service. Since the war, however, the advocates of compulsion have lost all shyness about using the word "Conscription," though they still prefer the name "Compulsory Military Service," or, better still," National Service," to describe their scheme. National Service" has quite a respectable, not to say democratic, ring.
What then is Conscription, and in what respect does it differ from compulsory military service?
Conscription was first adopted as a modern military expedient "by the French Directory for Napoleon's campaign in 1798. Now," Napoleon cried, "I can afford to expend 30,000 men a month." And he expended them. The conscript system was continued in France until 1872, when it was abandoned in favour of universal personal military service.
Under the original conscript system, which is still retained in several European countries, the State claimed the service of every able-bodied adult male for war, but for economic and other reasons the claim was modified down to the following provisions: (1) That a certain number of recruits should be raised annually in each district, the requisite number to be obtained by drawing lots. (2) Those selected by lot were to serve under the colours usually for a long period of years. But (3) those selected by lot [2] might avoid service by paying a certain indemnity, or by obtaining a substitute, by persuasion or purchase, to take their place. Clergymen, doctors, students, and certain other classes, as well as the only sons of widowed mothers, were usually excepted from service.
Such was the old Conscription.
Universal military service, on the other hand, was adopted by Prussia in 1813, and has since displaced, to a large extent, the old form of Conscription in Europe. The compulsory service system differs from Conscription in the following features: (1) Every able-bodied male (usually with certain exceptions pertaining to education and public service) must personally serve under the colours, no substitute being allowed. But (2) the period of service in the ranks, instead of being for 25 or more years, is usually a short-service one limited to two or three years, after which the soldier is listed on the reserve and returns to ordinary civil life, except for occasional short periods of training. He remains, however, still a soldier, always under military command until his reserve period expires, which is usually when he has reached 40 years. He may even be called up after that age in case of national emergency. And (3) which is most important-no pay or merely a nominal allowance of a penny or twopence a day is given the soldiers.
Such is universal military service.
It will be seen that Conscription and universal service are the same in essence: the one is but a mode of the other. Conscription is a form of universal compulsory soldiering, and universal service a form of Conscription. We do not need to worry about the name: it is the thing itself that concerns us.
Let us now see what the particular scheme of compulsory service is that the Conscriptionists in this country-otherwise the National Service Leaguers-profess to have in view. I speak, of course, of what they were asking for before the war. They have become much bolder since then.
Compared with the present Continental system their demands are (or were) exceedingly moderate. It was essential, of course, not to frighten the British people by springing a full-blown French or Prussian system upon them at once. They had first to get “the thin edge of the wedge in." They spoke much about its being a means of moral discipline and industrial efficiency.
So the National Service League only asked for the following—as a beginning:
This compulsory training and service was to be—so the National Service League said before the war—for home service and defence only. The existing Regular Army was to be kept going as hithertofore, and upon it solely was to rest the obligation of going on foreign service as an expeditionary force.
Such, then, is (or was before the war) the compulsory service scheme of the National Service League.
Compared, as I have said, with the German, French, or Russian systems it looks on the face of it a mild and moderate proposal indeed. But its apparent moderation is deceptive—like the "mimicry" or "protective colouring" of certain poisonous plants and fierce animals which smile, so to speak, in order to betray. For observe first: This National Service project gets the thin edge of the wedge of Conscription in as deep as need be for a first stroke. It cleaves at one blow the voluntary system, and fixes compulsion irretrievably upon the whole boyhood and manhood of the nation. It destroys fatally that freedom from soldiering, that personal and civil liberty of the individual which is the distinguishing feature of British freedom, the one great principle upon which the civic character and national greatness of our country rests.
Secondly, observe that though the demand of the National Service Leaguers has been for only a maximum period of four or six months' service in camp, that is merely provisional: it can, as Lord Roberts, when pressed, guardedly admitted, be "modified," and General French has declared that "less than two years in camp will not do."
And observe, thirdly, that the assurance that compulsory service was to be confined to Home Defence only was also merely provisional. That, too, could be modified: Lord Roberts frankly admitted that also. Speaking at the Mansion House, August 1, 1905, he said: "Whether these men go to the seat of war or not must depend on the will of the nation." General French, in his evidence before the Norfolk Commission, said emphatically that it was necessary that "for war they (the conscripted troops) must go abroad....If we suddenly went to war with Russia, I should expect them to go out and take part in the war."
There is, however, no need to labour that point. For who speaks now now since the war began of compulsory service for [4] Home Defence merely? What else is the demand ringing through the Times, the Daily Mail, and the other Northcliffe and Conscriptionist Press, but a demand that every able-bodied citizen should be compelled, "if need be," to go to the front—to France, to Egypt, to the Dardanelles? And of what avail would it be in a war such as the present one to have a million or two Conscript soldiers loafing about in camps at home on the off-chance of a raid or invasion, while the life-blood of the regular volunteer Army was ebbing away in desperate conflict with the enemy abroad?
No, the war has exploded once and for all the sophistry that Conscription was needed or desirable, or was really ever thought of, for Home Defence merely.
And now let us see who the leading advocates of Compulsory Service are, and what are the real motives of the agitation.
In previous chapters (see "Militarism," separately published) I have traced the growth of Militarism in this country, and shown how closely related it is to the growth of modern capitalist Imperialism. I have furnished abundant evidence from the writings and speeches of prominent Imperialists and Militarists to show that the feelings and aims which inspire the New Militarism, of which Conscription is the teeth and claws, in Great Britain are the same in character, if not quite (as yet) in actual form, as those which animate Prussian Militarism, Russian Militarism, and all military autocracies. And the chief purpose, common to them all, is conquest abroad, and the subjection of working-class democracy at home.
But, indeed, it should hardly be necessary to gather such evidence to make plain to us the reactionary and anti-Labour motive of the Conscriptionist campaign. The names of the founders and chief promoters of the agitation are in themselves a sufficient warning signal of that. Almost to a man the office-bearers and leading supporters of the National Service League consist of lords and gentlemen who, it is not unfair to say, are conspicuous opponents of Radical and Labour principles. Take as an example this handful from the top of the barrel :
Lord Milner,
Lord Curzon,
Lord Derby,
Duke of Wellington,
Marquis of Ormonde,
Earl of Meath,
Earl Fitzwilliam,
Earl of Winchilsea.
A dainty dish that of gilded patricians to set before the British public! Tories, Tariff Reformers, Anti-Democrats every one.
[5] What if we asked them for their "character notes as politicians, and landowners, and capitalists? What if we inquired how they voted on Old Age Pensions, the Trade Disputes Bill, and other working-class measures. Lord Milner, who is among the most insistent of Conscriptionists, was also, characteristically enough, the man above all others responsible for the introduction of Chinese slave labour into South Africa. Lord Curzon is chiefly remembered for having during his term of office as Viceroy of India nearly caused a rebellion in Bengal by his repressive policy; while the Earl of Derby modestly masks under that title the notoriety he won when, as Lord Stanley and Postmaster-General, he referred to the Trade Union officials of the Postal Service as "bloodsuckers and blackmailers."
Over and above these must be now set the most potent plutocrat, the archest Conscriptionist, of them all—Lord Northcliffe, the superman of the Times, the Daily Mail, the Evening News, the Weekly Dispatch, the Sunday Pictorial, whose creative organs of public opinion are, in fact, legion, and who would fain, if we would let him (as, indeed, we almost do), supersede the King, the Cabinet, the Parliament, and electorate, together with the Army and Navy commanders. Of his democracy and zeal for the cause of labour what need be said?
Among the men whose names are prominently associated with the Conscriptionist agitation, previous at any rate to the present war, I do not know of one who has figured as champion of working-class interests or popular freedom. There are doubtless a few exceptions to this rule among those who, like Mr. Lloyd George, may have given their support to compulsion as a temporary expedient during the war, but these are cases peculiar and exceptional that do not affect the truth of my statement. The fact remains that the Conscriptionist movement is in its origin, its purpose, and support aristocratic and anti-democratic to the core.
Thoughtful observers have long perceived that the ruling classes were gathering themselves together for a spring at the throat of democracy. It was manifest they were not going to yield up their hold over the political and industrial movements of the working-class without a desperate struggle. In militarism they saw the historic weapon of class rule lying by them rusty and unused. Why not refurbish it and sharpen its blade? Bz militarism was aristocracy and class privilege founded, and by militarism only could the lost privileges of rank and wealth be regained.
This was no unforeseen eventuality. How often at Radical and Trade Union meetings during the past fifty years have speakers brandished the words ascribed to Catharine of Russia, and since re-echoed by many a modern statesman, that "The only way to save our empire from the encroachments of the people is [6] to engage in war and thus substitute national passions for social aspirations." How often have those of us who have discountenanced wild revolutionary talk, had it thrown in our teeth that as soon as the working class became really earnest in their political struggle for their rights, the ruling classes would bring down on them the military arm of the State like a thunderstroke.
Consider what has happened since the advent of the Socialist and political Labour movement in our country. Within a period of little over a quarter of a century the aristocracy and wealthier classes have been denuded almost completely of their political privileges. Even the Lords' veto in legislation has been abolished, and almost the last vestige of feudal privilege has been taken from them. They are left destitute of any authority over their fellows except what they derive incidentally from their ownership of land and the means of employment. The greatest lord or richest factory owner can compel no man or woman, however poor, to work for him or obey him. The poorest labourer may look the richest lord in the face and "send him to blazes" if he has a mind to.
Coincidentally with the decline of the political power of the ruling classes has uprisen the political knowledge and power of the working classes. The spread of Socialist teaching has revolutionised things. New and gorgeously winged hopes of social equality have taken shape. Labour, conscious of his titanic might, has risen upright. Trade Unionism has assumed a new and alarming significance.
In a flash the railwaymen resolve to strike, and lo! the trains cease running, and the railway companies are powerless to force a single man back to his post. In a flash the miners throw down their tools, and no will but their own can bid them descend the pit-shaft. The Labour Party has sprung into the political field. The ballot-box is no longer an annexe of the castle or the counting-house. Men from the mine, the railway, and the factory, are displacing Peers' sons and wealthy manufacturers in Parliament. Labour Representation is now firmly established in the constituencies. No less than 2,500 Labour men and women have obtained seats on local governing bodies, knocking out a similar number of landlords, employers, estate agents, and other representatives of the propertied classes.
My readers, do you not grasp the meaning of it all?
Think you, do not the ruling classes, the people of rank and great possessions, feel and deeply resent this state of things which is paralysing their power and threatening their very existence? Think you, does no desire, no hope of regaining their lost dominion over the workers and the nation any longer remain in their hearts? The lust and pride of power—power to command others to serve and obey—is not that the passion which above all others has [7] afflicted the world with tyrants and slaves, conquest and oppression since the world began?
And save by reviving the yoke of militarism that lust must remain unsatisfied and that pride perish.
There is no other means than that under heaven whereby the class autocracy of the rich can be restored. For militarism is the craft, the means, and the power of all despotism, all lordship, all slavery, all oppression. It is the one instrument which endows men with the right to command the obedience of their fellows without question or redress. Obedience, implicit and unqualified, is the essence of military discipline; and according to military rules there is no limit, none whatever, to what an officer may command those under him to do. His word is law to seize, to kill, to abandon, to save. How tempting, how gratifying to certain minds is such power as that!
I have shown in previous chapters (separately published*) that in the love of freedom—personal and political—in the liking for constitutionalism, and the sense of civic fellowship, together with the hatred of lawlessness, autocracy, and servility, are to be found the true roots of British greatness. I have shown that that greatness which consists of the British nation being
the freest and the richest country in Europe, and the country which more than any other has extended its race, speech, literature, trade, and political customs throughout the world
is coincident with and consequent upon the circumstance that Great Britain is also
the least militarist country in Europe and the only one that has resolutely kept itself free from the yoke of Conscription.
I have shown how slow was the growth of the standing army system in this country and how intense the dislike to professional soldiering amongst the business classes until within quite recent years, since when the nation has been harassed day and night with the clamour for Conscription and inflated armaments. I have shown what the avowed views of the militarists are, and that behind their attempt to slip the fetters of the Continental military system on the manhood of the nation there is the twofold design (1) of preserving for British Capitalism its dominant hold on the possessions and markets of the world, and (2) of regaining for the ruling classes their political and industrial control of the workers.
Such is the meaning and menace of the New Militarism— the new universal discipline which the idle and devouring ranks of Society have prescribed for the British democracy. Need we marvel that, in eager anticipation of this apotheosis of Jingo and the khakification of the whole manhood of the realm by due enactment of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the faithful Commons, the Yellow Press is becoming increasingly rampageous and the smouldering hopes of reaction are everywhere bursting afresh into flame!
"On his brow this mark I saw-
I am God, and King, and Law.”
In the face of this affronting challenge to all that is consecrate in the life and freedom and hopes of the democracy, does it not behove us to unfurl our banners and boldly defend our heritage? The peril of Junkerdom and military tyranny is not less if it comes from within instead of without our gates. Grim will be the plight of our country and bitter our reproach if, while tens of thousands of our sons and brothers are ungrudgingly giving their lives in battle with Prussian Militarism abroad, we allow a hardly less hateful oppression at home to triumph over them and us and our children.
Our obligations to our soldiers at the front and to our country we must fulfil, and not the least of these must be:
The second of these, all important as it is at this hour, opens up a field of discussion beyond the range of these pages.
It is dealt with separately in the series of pamphlets to which this belongs, as well as the series issued by the Union of Democratic Control, and in valuable works by Mr. Norman Angell, Mr. J. A. Hobson, and other writers. And surely in view of the present awful consummation of militarism in a devil's orgy of manslaughter in Europe, the hope and duty of bringing about an international concordat of peace and of overthrowing the powers of war for ever should appeal to the noblest energies of the British race and the democracies of the world!
But whether or no our hopes are realised of winning from the present appalling conflict—"the war that is to end war"—any release for our own and other nations from the existing burden of militarism, at least we must see to it that it does not win from us one of our chief heritages of freedom. German despotism can never be imposed upon us, except in defiance of our will and resistance: Conscription can only be imposed upon us by our will and consent. Shall our will and consent be given?
[9] We have seen what the real motives of the Conscriptionists are. Not patriotism but class egotism inspires their demand for the military enslavement of the working class. What they want is not an army of freemen, of willing and cheerful soldiers. want a cheap army, a servile army, an army that can, as in Germany and Russia, be browbeaten by the military caste, and can in turn be used to browbeat the democracy. "The present war, terrible as it is," exclaims the Conscriptionist Press, "will not have been in vain if it brings the nation to realise the necessity of Compulsory Service." In leading articles, in letters to the press, in speeches on recruiting platforms, Conscriptionists have expressed alarm and indignation at the enormous taxation which the wages, allowances, and pensions required to maintain the present volunteer army in the field will lay upon the taxpayers. "See," they cry, "how under Conscription in France, in Germany, and Russia, twice as many men can be put in the field at less than half the cost."
The Conscriptionists want, I repeat, a sweated army, an army of men who have had no choice or will in becoming soldiers, who are paid coolie rates of pay and can be made to submit to the treatment of coolies.
I need not dwell on the effects which the withdrawal every year of at least 500,000 young men from their employment, whether for a period of two years, one year, six months or less, would have upon themselves and the industry of the country. The loss in wages to the working class would be enormous, and the dislocation of industry would add greatly to the mass of unemployment. The National Service League's proposal is that the conscripted workmen, during their first year's training, should be paid 6d. a day, and after that at the level rate of soldiers of the line—1s. a day. Low as that rate is, it must be regarded as merely an “initiation" rate. The more drastic Conscriptionists do not disguise the fact that their ideal British Army is one after the French or German model, which means that, should they have their way, our British conscripts would have to serve not four or six months under the colours, but at least two years, and that, too, for the patriotic rate of less than 2d. a day!
Nor would the present pay in the British Army be more than 2d. or 3d. a day had Conscription been adopted in this country. It is entirely due to the voluntary system that the rate of pay, family allowances, and pensions in the British Army is six or more times higher than in any of the conscript armies abroad.
[10] It will be seen therefore that Conscription would have a disastrous effect on the family life of the working class. It would still further discourage marriage, and disturb the foundations of the home.
But the war, they say, demands Conscription. It is they, not the war, that demand it. They demanded Conscription when there was no war and when no thought of a war that would require the raising of a million, not to speak of three or four million, men was ever dreamt of. They demanded Conscription solely, they said, for home defence. They now demand it for foreign service.
What is the testimony of the war? Its testimony is that Great Britain, without Conscription, has better borne the strain of the struggle than any other of the belligerent countries. She is the nation that has withstood the shock of the war with the least disturbance to her industrial system, and the least exhaustion of her resources. She is not only maintaining her own enormous army and navy in munitions, but helping to maintain her Allies' also. Without her financial co-operation her Conscript Allies would be hard pressed for money.
Lord Kitchener and Mr. Asquith have declared that the response to the call for recruits has been magnificent, and has exceeded all expectations. From field, mine, railway, factory, warehouse, office, and school lads and men have offered themselves— four millions of them, of whom three millions have been accepted. Nor would the response have been less had no ignoble means of pressure been brought in many instances to bear by employers upon them.
No, the voluntary system has not failed. But the Northcliffe newspapers have done their utmost to make it fail. They have denounced and ridiculed it, and virtually advised the men not to enlist. They have bullied Lord Kitchener unceasingly to demand compulsion. And now it is announced that while affirming that he still prefers the voluntary system he has intimated that if voluntary enlistment does not continue to yield a certain number of recruits to make up for wastage he will ask for compulsion.
The question as to what replacements are required is not, however, solely a military question. The matter depends greatly on the general war scheme and policy of the Government. Even with twenty millions of men the army would still be short of men if no limit is placed on the extensions of the British military scheme of operations in Europe and elsewhere. The Government can, and must, do with the men that voluntary enlistment yields.
But the Conscriptionists want Conscription. They want it for the war, and for after the war. They want it for their [11] Imperialist schemes abroad: they want it for their class vanity and political interests at home. We must not yield to them: we must resist them to the uttermost.
Conscription would degrade the nation, imperil the civic basis of its liberty, and profoundly affect the character and progress of our national life.
Conscription would fundamentally change the nature of the British Army, which with all its defects, and its unsurpassed spirit in battle and capacity for endurance under every sun, has been the least despotic on the part of its officers and the least servile on the part of its ranks of any army in the world. It has been the least military and therefore, for all purposes not ignoble, the best. Its voluntary principle has been its saving grace. It has preserved it from the baser forms of corruption and the more brutal tyrannies of the conscript armies abroad. For "under our voluntary system the soldiers must not be treated too harshly or recruiting will suffer." If a regiment gets a bad name for ill-treatment or misbehaviour, men will not join it: if the Army generally gets a bad name, recruiting becomes difficult and costly. Thus does the absence of compulsion act as an ever freshening breeze, keeping the British Army life comparatively free and sweet. Can anyone who knows the conditions that exist under the conscript system in foreign countries contemplate the taking away of this great paladium from the British Army without a feeling of foreboding and dismay?
Let the conscript countries speak.
FRANCE. The greatest of living French writers, M. Anatole France, declares that: "The horrors of our military service are such that a Frenchwoman, if she has a son, will rejoice in becoming a widow because the son will then be exempted from two years of the martyrdom." Numerous other novelists and publicists have dealt with the degrading servitude and revolting effects of the French conscript system, including MM. Zola, Octave Mirabeau, Lucien Descaves, Emile de Girardin, M. Urbain Gohier in his L'Armée contre La Nation, and M. Gustave Hervé in his anti-militarist propaganda which brought him a long term of imprisonment, have also mercilessly exposed the conditions of army life in their country.
And do we not remember the shameful revelations of the notorious Dreyfus affair and the Rousset case which, together with [12] countless others of which little has been heard on this side of the Channel, have intensified the anti-militarist feeling of the French working class? Here are one or two typical words of testimony:
M. Lionel Dècle, the French explorer, declares:
The three years every able-bodied Frenchman has to serve in the Army are nothing but a ceaseless degradation for men possessing any self-respect.
M. Daumont, the editor of the Libre Parole, speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, declared:
Compulsory service, far from being a school of morals, is a school of drunkenness, idleness, and debauchery.
It has gone a long way towards ruining our peasantry, and to a large extent has already debased them.
I deem the universal military service, as it is sometimes termed, one of the saddest sacrifices our country calls on us to bear.
GERMANY. In Germany, under Conscription, the soldiers are treated with incredible harshness by their officers, and the army caste completely dominates the civil population. The German Social Democratic Party has sustained a ceaseless agitation against the brutality universally inflicted on the soldiers. In connection with the trial of Rosa Luxemburg (now in prison) for having exposed the hateful system of oppression in the Army, the Social Democratic Party prepared a list of thousands of witnesses who were ready to support the truth of her statements. Lieutenant Bilse for publishing his book, From a Small Garrison Town, in which the repulsive features of German military life were candidly depicted, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and dismissed the service. Ex-Lieutenant Krafft affirms that:
The German barracks are certainly not, as we often hear, and as they should be, a school for the people, but they are a great national misfortune, destroying the progress of our political and agricultural life. They undermine the foundations of humanity, so that the present state of things cannot long.continue without fostering a revolution in years to come.
RUSSIA. It is with reluctance that I cite the case of the Russian conscript soldier just now. I have no wish to reflect on our ally. But as the Russian military system is one of the greatest in the world, it is important that the state of the soldier under Conscription in Russia should be brought into view. In a report presented by the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party to the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam, 1911, the writers say:
The Russian private is condemned to an antiquated, absolutely senseless discipline and to Draconian punishment.... The Government makes every effort to isolate and alienate the soldier from the people and to terrorise him into silent obedience. He is treated more like a prisoner than a defender of his country.... Every sign of independence is suppressed with the utmost severity. A laugh in the ranks or a mere word may lead the soldier into many months or years at a disciplinary battalion, where he is subjected to the most barbarous and lawless treatment.
[13] Kuprine, the celebrated Russian writer, who was for a time an officer in the army, thus describes in his powerful novel, In Honour's Name, the effect of conscript life on otherwise humane and decently behaved men:
Yes, they (the officers) are all alike, even the best and most tender hearted among them. At home they are splendid fathers of families, and excellent husbands, but as soon as they approach the barracks they become low-minded barbarians....The odious grimaces, swaggering manners, bold and scornful looks—"God help the man who dares insult me!"—padded shoulders, cock-a-hoop defiance. They live like parasites on society.
And have not you, the workers, in our own country had some foretaste since the war began, of what compulsion, military and industrial, may bring? I am not going into the subject of recent experiences under the Defence of the Realm and Munitions Acts. But I ask you to consider what your position would be were Conscription in full blast. The evidence I have given in these pages of the feeling in the mind of the leading advocates of compulsion should forewarn you.
Remember that in case of a great industrial struggle, a telegram from the War Office might at any moment convert half a million Trade Unionists on strike into half a million conscript soldiers, bound to obey orders which they could not question.
Remember that under Conscription in Germany, France, Russia, and Italy workmen on strike have been summoned under the colours and compelled as soldiers to play the part of blacklegs against themselves as Trade Unionists, and even to raise their bayonets against their fellow workers.
As nothing relating to Germany is reckoned valid just now by way of evidence of what may be done in civilised countries, I shall cite an example from France. In 1910, goaded to exasperation by their miserable conditions of long hours and small pay, and constant intimidation, the railway workers on the Western and Northern lines came out on strike. The Prime Minister, M. Briand, formerly a Socialist Deputy, instantly took "drastic action," with the full approval of Parliament and the press, except the Socialist Party and the Socialist and Trade Union journals. M. E. A. Vizetelley in his Republican France thus describes in a sentence what was done. "The Army reserves," he tells us, "were called out, the various lines were guarded by military; soldiers with a knowledge of railway work-among them being all those strikers who, as reserve men, were temporarily reincorporated in the Army were called upon to ensure the various services, and with few exceptions they did their duty." The strike was broken, hundreds of men were punished, not merely by being refused re-employment, but by prosecution under military law.
[13] But perhaps, you think, that would never occur in this country. One hopes not, but, if so, it will hardly be, judging from past experience, from any lack of will on the part of those in power. Let me recall the great Railwaymen's Strike in August, 1911. Mr. P. W. Wilson, the Parliamentary correspondent of the Daily News, in an article in that journal (August 25) giving the inner history of the settlement, declared that the Government (the Liberal, Asquith, Lloyd George, and Churchill Government) had at first determined on absolutely crushing that strike by a "policy of batons, bayonets, and bullets." The Government, in advance of the settlement negotiations, had, he stated, given a written carte blanche to the railway companies to call upon the troops. He added:
It was this remarkable and probably unprecedented document that was heralded forth by the companies as an absolute guarantee of an adequate, if restricted, train service. The knowledge that the troops, with ball cartridge and naked bayonets, would be virtually under the instructions of the companies wherever picketing was effective, produced an unparalleled situation. It meant that the Briand policy had been adopted —a policy successful in France as a means of crushing a railway strike, but fatal to the continuance of a British administration.
It was only, Mr. Wilson tells us, when the Labour Party announced its resolve to move a vote of censure on the Government in the House, that the Government thought better of its bullet and bayonet project, and through the medium of Mr. Lloyd George adopted a conciliatory policy.
But we are not dependent upon inference or surmise with respect to the hostile aims of the Conscriptionists towards Democracy and Trade Unionism. The militarists have left no room for doubt on that point. Their avowals and admissions are more than plentiful. I have only space here for a few of the more typical examples, but these, I think, will suffice. I shall begin with one of those significant remarks that give piquancy to the "heart to heart" conversations in military clubs, but seldom escape into the columns of the Press.
Speaking at the Service Club, August 26, 1915, Colonel Sir Augustus Fitzgeorge (son of the late Royal Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief) said:
Compulsory service was necessary at this time when the people were getting out of hand.
There is a world of meaning, as the saying is, in that little sentence, which will be illuminated by the quotations that follow.
[15] Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Maxwell is brutally frank in his appreciation of Conscription and Martial Law as a short way to crush Trade Unionism:
The abuse of personal freedom has reached its climax in this country. Trade Unionism—that shelter for slinking shirkers—is imperilling our existence, and by its action a rot of our national soul has set in. One remedy and one alone can eradicate this state of rot—martial law will cure it. With the knowledge that refusal to assist in the nation's defence means "death" to the individual so refusing, the shirkers would soon be brought to their senses and fall in wherever required. All who incite to rebellion to be shot at once by drumhead Court Martial would have a steadying effect. The individual does not count to-day. If Parliament will not act then let a Cromwell come in and settle the question. He would be welcomed. (The Outlook, September 1915)
Colonel Arthur Lee, M.P., explicitly admits that the Conscriptionist design is to use compulsory service as a means of avoiding having to pay Trade Union rates to soldiers, and of being able thereby to run wars more cheaply. In a speech at Fareham (August 17, 1915), which the Times commended as “well and clearly stating the facts of the matter," the Colonel said:
Not content with coaxing and pushing and bullying Britons to do their duty we had also descended to bribing them. We had the spectacle at the front of motor and lorry drivers drawing 6s. a day and living in ease and in safety while their comrades who worked the machine-guns and heavy artillery, and who must also be mechanics, were paid only is. 6d. and were risking their lives every moment.
The right remedy, one would think, for this obviously unfair way of treating the fighting ranks would be to raise the pay of the men, skilled and unskilled alike, who were risking their lives every moment for their country up to the rate of those living "in ease and in safety." But that is not the Conscription idea. Their remedy is to cut down the pay of all the rank and file, whether riflemen, engineers, transport drivers, or telegraphists to the continental conscript level. For, says Colonel Lee:
Under a system of National Service, such as exists in France, all soldiers would be paid alike and each soldier would be put to the duty for which he was best suited. That was only democratic and just, and would, moreover, save an immense amount of money. (The Times, August 18, 1915)
None will dispute the Colonel's statement that adoption of the National Service system as it exists in France, where soldiers are paid only a few pence, would "save an immense sum of money," but the democracy and justice of the system is a different matter. Think what it means. Workmen under National Service are to be compelled to give up their jobs and go to the front. There they must perform tasks requiring high skill, work unrestricted hours, endure every hardship, suffer terrible [16] wounds, risk every moment their lives. And for this they are to be rewarded by having their pay reduced from 5s., 6s., 7s., perhaps 8s., or more, down to 1s. 6d., or perhaps 6d., or 2d., as in France, while their mates who are lucky enough not to be conscripted are to enjoy their full pay, and merchants and employers are to go on with their business as usual, making as big war profits as they can! Colonel Lee does indeed "well and clearly state the facts of the matter," and it is to be hoped the working class will as well and clearly grasp the meaning of his statement. Major-General Sir Alfred E. Turner, who has contributed a series of letters to the Spectator in favour of Conscription, also lays stress on compulsory service as a means of dealing with strikes. Referring to the South Wales miners' dispute, he says:
The strikers gained their ends, and with them an everlasting stain on their reputation, which not all the rain of heaven can wash out, the stain of showing themselves perfectly eady to betray their country for filthy lucre. Compulsory service might not produce loyalty, but it would produce a sense of duty and discipline that would prevent such disgraceful and damaging incidents.(Letter in Saturday Review, August 7, 1915.)
Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, 16th September last in the debate on Conscription, Sir Alfred Mond directed his attack against the voluntary system on the ground (amongst others) that it took away too many married men and so involved too heavy an expenditure on the dependents of the killed and wounded soldiers:
The present system is the most extravagant form of recruiting that any country has yet undertaken. It is unnecessary to burden yourselves with the enormous separation allowances for years to come.
Numerous extracts might be given from newspaper articles and correspondence urging the adoption of Conscription as a means of disciplining the workers not only under the Army authorities but under their masters in the workshop. A correspondent, for example, in the Spectator (Sept. 14, 1915), writes:
As a supporter of the National Service League I regret that compulsion is not to be applied to the shops. It is more necessary there than in the Army.
A weekly journal that boasts having a circulation of over a million copies hails Prussian Conscription as the remedy for strikes:
The miners who refuse to work must be Conscripted—put under military control and made to work at soldiers' pay. That is the way they do things in Germany, and that is the way we must do with them here. (John Bull)
In a special article in the Manchester Guardian August 24, 1915, dealing with the intense feeling against compulsory service in [17] Ireland, the writer says: "The Conscriptionists have come to be regarded in Ireland as a party working under cover of the political truce for wide, far-reaching, and permanent political changes, of which a Conscript Army would be only a symbol," and he quotes the Morning Post as saying that "the vile stuff of the political principle upon which modern England has developed was being thrown into the dust heap.”
Finally, for I might fill pages more with quotations to the same effect, I shall ask my readers to ponder the testimony of Mr. Benjamin Kidd, the well-known author of Social Evolution and Western Civilisation. In an interview recorded in the Daily News (September 7, 1915,) Mr. Kidd says:
I have not much hope that once compulsion is introduced we shall get free of it after the war. There are many of the advocates of Conscription who press for it for purely military reasons, but there are others—some of the chief of them have frankly admitted as much to me—who desire it as the only weapon against the growing power of the Trade Unions. And it is in that direction that Conscription must in any case inevitably tend. The whole principle of force rests on Conscription, and the introduction of Conscription would mean the introduction of that principle of force of which Germany is so perfect an exponent.
And if you think Mr. Kidd is taking a too alarmist view of what would result from the establishment of Conscription and the letting loose of the insolent militarist spirit upon the nation, let me remind you of the sentiment recently expressed by Lord Derby. Speaking at the Guildhall, London (July 15, 1915), in company with Lord Kitchener and Sir Edward Carson, his lordship evoked cheers from the gathering by declaring: "We sometimes hear of spies being taken to the Tower ditch and shot. If sometimes we could take a questioner from the floor of the House of Commons into the Palace Yard for the same operation, I think it would have a salutary effect."
Of such, then, is Conscription. Of such is compulsory military service under whatever shape or mask it is urged upon us. Of such are the Conscriptionists with their lofty appeals for "national service," their grandiloquent beseechings to the people to yield up their heritage of civicism and freedom, and to take upon themselves the yoke of militarism which has kept the democracies of Europe in thrall and strife down all the centuries, and has dragged them into the awful whirlpool of slaughter in which we see them plunged to-day.
Do not you, my readers, now perceive the true portent of this unprecedented zeal on the part of the aristocracy—the Lord Northcliffes, Lord Milners, Lord Derbys, and their kind—for the moral and physical regeneration of the working class, the welfare of the nation, the interests of the Empire? I am not alleging that the leaders of the compulsory service agitation are consciously seeking [18] to deceive and entrap the people. They are obsessed with the militarist idea. It profoundly appeals to their class system, to their own material interests, to their craving for power over people. They doubtless sincerely believe, as all autocrats and oligarchs do, and always have done, that their own interests are the true interests of the nation-a notion so familiar to us in such precepts as "the poor thrive in the prosperity of the rich, and "the interests of Capital and Labour are the same." That fallacy has been the working theory of oppression and slavery since the world began. But the world is now growing out of it, and the hopes of a new civilisation abound.
I come now to an argument which has influenced a good many people in favour of compulsory service who otherwise have no sympathy with militarism.
Conscriptionists affirm that it is the duty of every citizen to help to defend his country. They even quite pleasantly say that in respect of this principle Socialists who profess to believe in social and political equality should be agreed with them. The Socialist principle always appeals to these lords and gentlemen when they think it can be applied to keeping the people down or getting something more out of them; never when it is rightly applied to the raising of the people up and to the restoring to them what has been taken from them. Let us approve the principle of equal duties and equal rights by all means, but let us see to it that we understand what equal duties and equal rights are.
And in the first place let us get rid of the superstition, for such it is, that by giving or compelling different men to do the same thing you are thereby imposing equal duties upon them. You are not doing that; you are putting them to very unequal labours and strain. For the same task that is easy to a big, powerful man, or one who has a natural aptitude for the task, may be very exhausting and oppressive to a small or feeble man, or to one who has a deep distaste for it.
It is in the understanding of these facts, these differences of circumstances and aptitude, and in allowing for the free play, as far as possible, of opportunity and choice with respect to them, that the real virtue lies of the principle of personal freedom and civil liberty, of which I have spoken so much in earlier chapters. For the true essence of freedom is not that it permits men to escape [19] their duties, but rather that it enables them to choose and do, with a wisdom derived from the fountains of their being, what they feel will be most beneficial for others and themselves.
No stupid straight line or dead-level rule of all doing the same thing, even were such possible, would ever accomplish that. What equality, for example, can there be between the case of the workman who willingly or under compulsion goes into the Army, giving up in so doing the entire means of his own and (perhaps) his family's support, and provided with little or nothing to keep him in the event of his being disabled, little or nothing to leave behind him for his beloved ones at home in case of being slain—what equality, I say, is there between the sacrifice asked of such a man and that of a rich man, whose income from rent and interest will roll in as freely when he is under the colours as before, and who knows that, whatever happens to himself, no want of bread or comfort can darken the days of those dearest to him?
There is not, and never can be, equality of service between the rich and the poor.
Let it be agreed that in principle we are all equally concerned in the defence of our country and its freedom, according to our powers. But are we not all equally bound to contribute to the wealth and happiness of our country according to our powers also? And if all may be asked equally to risk their lives for their country when in danger, how much more should they be required equally to give up all their wealth for the country in the case of need? In a word, if the necessity is such that the souls and bodies of the whole manhood of the country must be nationalised, is it not equally necessary and just that the wealth of the whole of the country should be nationalised-even to the last penny?
And what have my lords Northcliffe, and Derby, and Milner to say to that?
We are told that the principle of compulsion is already in operation with regard to elementary education, insurance, taxation, and many other things. There is, however, no analogy between compulsion of that kind and compulsory military service. The compulsion in the case of taxation and insurance is not on each and all of us to become tax collectors and insurance agents, or to adopt any other profession or special mode of life whether we want it or not, but a compulsion to contribute to the cost of providing those national services which we all benefit by. So far as this kind of compulsion is concerned, we are already all fully under it with respect to national defence, for we all contribute to its maintenance. In regard to education, parents are merely called upon to do that for their children which presumably all willingly would do were they not tempted by poverty or carelessness to neglect their duty.
[20] Conscriptionists themselves have to admit that their theory is not of universal application. A large section of the manhood of the nation must, whether trained to arms or not, be kept out of the fighting ranks in order to carry on the industrial and other services of the nation-agriculture, mining, railways, etc., as well as the manufacture of munitions, which has now become as important in warfare as soldiering at the front. These workers must, in fact, be exempted from active service under the colours, else the Army and the nation would collapse. Thus the "equality" of the Conscriptionist principle breaks down. Its tyranny, however, remains, for by means of Conscription the right of choosing who are to fight and those who are not to fight would rest with the military authorities—and that is a much coveted power.
General Sir Ian Hamilton (lately commanding in the Dardanelles), who is a strong opponent to Conscription, emphasises the importance of the voluntary principle in respect to the conditions of modern progress. He remarks:
The voluntary principle is inspired by the spirit of self-expression and self-confidence.... It coincides in one of its leading attributes with the great principle of modern life and progress, seeing that it depends on specialisation. The two classes of the community (soldiers and sailors) undertake the fighting part of the national business; all the other classes devote themselves uninterruptedly to their own private business, and pay for the war not with their persons but with their purses.(Compulsory Service, by Sir Ian Hamilton, pages 49-50.)
The true position with regard to national service of all kinds is not that all must give personal service of the same kind: but that all should give what service they can best give according to their powers. This is recognised in a rough-and-ready way under our existing political system. We are all supposed to be equally concerned in maintaining the education, the health, the law and order, and the government of the country. But we are not, therefore, obliged all to become school teachers, doctors and hospital nurses, policemen and lawyers, or Government officials. What we do (or are supposed to do, erroneously of course) is to contribute equally towards the maintenance of education, health, law and order, and the government. We are not compelled personally to serve in all or any of these departments. We are as far as possible left free to choose our occupation and way of life. And so with regard to national defence. We all contribute to the maintenance of the Army and Navy; but none of us are compelled personally to serve. The Army and Navy, like the teachers' profession, the doctors' profession, and the police and law professions attract some and repel others. If there is difficulty in getting enough men for the Army and Navy, or for any of these other professions, the pay and other conditions are improved in order to attract volunteers.
[21] That is the British principle: it applies all round. And it is the right principle. It is the voluntary principle. It is the true Socialist principle.
Compulsion, especially with regard to personal service, to one's choice of occupation and way of life, is of the essence of slavery and oppression. Nothing but actual extremity of life and death ought to justify us in resorting to it even temporarily. No such extremity has arisen, or is, happily, likely to arise. The voluntary principle has not failed either in the Army or any other profession. What has failed, what does fail, is the political policy and administration of the Government.
Since the days of Feudal slavery in Great Britain no man or woman, except he be a criminal, a lunatic, or a pauper, has been compelled to personally serve any master or Government, or engage in any occupation or task by legal compulsion.
Shall we allow the old-world tyranny to return?
We are British citizens. No narrow patriotism, no Imperial vanity need stir our hearts in saying we love our country dearly and cherish our national possession of freedom. Our freedom! yes, but our freedom is not for ourselves alone. We are British citizens, but we likewise are citizens of Europe and of the world; and the brighter the torch of freedom we bear, the brighter will be the common splendour of freedom that will fill the eyes and light the path of all the nations.
Prussian Militarism thunders across the seas, and millions of our sons and brothers have volunteered their lives in defence of our land and liberty. Let us not by our feebleness render their sacrifice in vain. Let us see to it that, while they are gone forth to beat back Prussian Militarism from our shores, we do not allow a kindred breed of militarism (for, indeed, all spring from the one stock) to lay hold upon our country. Conscription, whether it be of bare Prussian steel or of British steel padded with Northcliffe velvet, will load our wrists with iron all the same.
Not less freedom do we need now that the real struggle for democracy in our own land and in the world is at last begun. Not less but more must we win for ourselves and bequeath to those who come after us. We and they will require all we can wrest from the powers and dominions of blood and gold. For the real Armageddon yet lies before us-the struggle, not between the military autocracy of one nation and another, or between the rival [22] Imperialisms for the possession of the earth, but the struggle between democracy and militarism in all lands, between the workers of the world and those who seek to keep the nations in bondage and fear.
My readers, I hope you feel strongly on this question. I hope you share the feeling which Mr. Benjamin Kidd has expressed so nobly and so memorably in a letter to the press: "I believe I express the inner thoughts of thousands of my fellow-countrymen when I say that there is no situation in British history in the past in which I feel I could have more willingly and cheerfully stood with my back to the wall to be shot in defence of a cause as I can feel myself to be willing to do now in defence of the case against Conscription. I say this under the two strongest motives that can move a man—religious conviction and intellectual conviction."
These words recall the noblest traditions of British civicism. They appeal to us in spirit and in truth. Let them be a banner for us in defending our country from the yoke of Conscription. Let us even amidst the appalling storm of war that is now shaking European States to their foundations resist to the utmost the encroachments of militarism, which is alien to the genius of our country and full of peril to its freedom and progress, and let us help rather to rescue the nations from the oppression of armaments and lead them with us to a higher civilisation—the civilisation of International Socialism, liberty and peace.
The Trade Unions and Socialist organisations in Great Britain and Ireland have, without exception, both before and since the outbreak of the war, proclaimed themselves against Conscription. At the recent Trade Union Congress (September, 1915)—the largest ever held—a resolution against compulsory service was adopted unanimously. Mr. Asquith acknowledged in the House early in October that he had received within a few weeks over 400 resolutions from Labour organisations, national and local, against the proposal. Many of the most eminent men of letters and publicists of our day have also declared themselves against it.
On the other hand, the Conscriptionists affirm that what they call the educated (they shrink from the term "kultured "') classes are in favour of compulsion. If that be so, the following remarkable pronouncement carries with it its own warning to the working class. Writing in the Spectator of August 2 last, the Master of University College, Oxford, Professor R. W. Macan, thus delivers himself:
[23]In view of the threat of revolution from the railwaymen addressed to the Sovran[sic] Legislature of the nation, in view of the imperium in imperio conceded to the Trade Union parliament, in view of the manifold weaknesses of the Executive of our Constitution, is it conceivable that we can avoid much longer the enactment of Universal Compulsory Service if the State, if the community is to be master in its own house?
What else is this but a further admission that it is not the fear of Prussian militarism, but the fear of British Trade Unionism and democracy that is arousing the zeal for Conscription among Our "educated" reactionists?
As these pages go to press for a third edition, it is announced that Lord Derby has been appointed Director of Recruiting, and that he has been given till November 30 to make a "last try" with the voluntary system. I make no comment on the fact that Lord Derby is an avowed Conscriptionist. But why a "last try"? Who has decided that, should Lord Derby's efforts fail, Conscription is to be imposed on us? And who is to determine what number of enrolments within the period stated is to constitute failure or success? Parliament has not been consulted on the matter, and the Prime Minister has impressively appealed to Parliament not even to discuss the subject of Conscription at present. Yet it is clear that it is already taken for granted that should someone—whether it be Lord Derby, or Lord Kitchener, or Lord Northcliffe, or the Northcliffe group of protégés in the Cabinet, we don't know—decide on or after November 30 that Lord Derby's "last try" has failed, then is Conscription to be the law of the land! Parliament is expected to submit (as doubtless it will unless the people speak up) to be dictated to in this fashion on a question which affects more deeply the constitutional rights and liberties of the people than any other question that Parliament has dealt with in our time. And into this state of backbonelessness has the "Sovran Legislature of the nation" fallen.
Before and after the passing of the Home Rule Act (at present suspended) Sir Edward Carson and his Ulster League declared that they would have recourse to armed rebellion rather than have Home Rule imposed upon them. They still stand by that declaration—nor have they been prosecuted for their threat, nor for being in possession of arms in order to enforce it. I do not advise the workers of Great Britain to make any such threat against the Government. I do not believe in armed rebellion in constitutional States. But it is clear that there is no time to lose, and that the workers must make known at once, loudly and emphatically, that they are resolutely opposed to Conscription, and are determined that this new tyranny shall not be imposed on the nation.