Freedom In Service Part 3

I. THE IDEA OF VOLUNTARISM

It is sometimes said that Britons are a common-sense and practical people, but a people impervious to ideas; that they are quick at the invention of expedients, but slow to recognize and follow general principles. This statement may be true of the nation as a whole; but it is lamentably untrue in respect of our politicians. They do somehow now and again get ideas into their heads, and when once they are there it seems as though nothing on earth or from heaven can eradicate them. I suppose that the explanation of this steadfast consistency, or unteachable obstinacy, is that their ideas soon pa.s.s out of their own control. Principles once professed are formulated into programmes, programmes are solidified into platforms, and platforms are planted upon the insensate rock of party organization. Hence, to abandon an idea (even when it is found to be erroneous) or to repudiate a principle (even when it is proved to be false and pernicious) involves a political upheaval akin to a revolution. It is easier to continue to stand on an obsolete platform and watch a nation drift to disaster than to abandon the platform and endanger the party organization--euphemistically termed for the occasion "national unity." An excellent case in point is the pathetic devotion of successive Governments to the voluntary principle of military service.

II. ITS ESTABLISHMENT

As we have already seen, the voluntary principle--a comparatively modern novelty--is one which established itself in our const.i.tution during the long period of peace that followed the Battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, and it had its _raison d'etre_ in the circ.u.mstances of the time. Our Navy had secured the undisputed command of the sea. Our sh.o.r.es and the sh.o.r.es of our distant Dominions were secure from invasion. All that we had to fear was an occasional Chartist riot, or Irish rebellion, or Indian mutiny, or petty Colonial war. To suppress these sporadic disorders a small professional army was incomparably the best instrument, and it was, of course, best secured and maintained by the system of voluntary enlistment. Thus in the halcyon Georgian and Victorian days the right inherent in every sovereign Government to call upon its subjects for national service sank into forgetfulness, the ancient military obligations of Englishmen fell into desuetude, and voluntarism held the field.

A quarter of a century ago, however, _i.e._, soon after the present German Emperor came to the throne, circ.u.mstances radically changed.

Germany obtained Heligoland and began to convert it into a naval base; she developed marked colonial activity and threatened British ascendancy in many parts of the world; she formulated a maritime programme and commenced the construction of a formidable navy. Nor was she alone.

Other Powers also--Powers at that time regarded as less friendly to Britain than Germany was supposed to be--started in the race for overseas dominions, international commerce, and strong fleets. It became evident to the most casual observer that sooner or later British command of the sea might be challenged, Britain and the Dominions attacked, and the future of the Empire put to the issue of war. Hence prudent patriots, who in course of time organized themselves into the National Service League under the guidance of Lord Roberts--_clarum atque venerabile nomen_--urged the revival of the old-time duty of universal military training in preparation for, and as the best safeguard against, the growing peril. But no! Politicians had committed themselves to the voluntary principle. The party caucuses would not risk the sacrifice of place and power that might ensue from the preaching of the unpalatable doctrine of duty and discipline to their masters, the electors. Hence, amid dangers daily growing greater in magnitude, the defence of the Empire on land (the garrisoning of one-fifth part of the land-area of the globe) was left to the diminutive professional force established merely for Imperial police purposes--a force smaller than that which Serbia felt necessary to guard her independence, or Switzerland to a.s.sure her neutrality.

III. THE RESULT

What was the result? It was this: that the British Empire, the richest prize that the world has ever displayed, spread out its treasures before the envious eyes of militant nations, practically undefended, save for its slender ring of circling s.h.i.+ps. There it lay, a constant and irresistible lure, especially to that parvenu and predatory Germanic Power which had appeared upon the European scene, as the offspring of treachery and violence, in 1871. Thus those politicians--they were to be found in all parties--who refused to face the new conditions, who persisted in maintaining that the voluntary principle, which sufficed to police an Empire externally secure, would also guard it against a world in arms, did their unwitting best to render an attack inevitable, and to ensure that when it burst upon us it should do us the maximum of damage.

In due time, that is, when Germany thought that "the day" had dawned, the war came. Then the voluntary principle manifested its proper fruits.

We found ourselves suddenly called upon to confront the supreme crisis of our fate with a gigantic proletariat untrained and unarmed, and with a diminutive army (below even its nominal strength), wholly inadequate to the magnitude of its tasks. What were the consequences? They were these: First, that our devoted Expeditionary Force, insufficient and unsupported, was sent across the Channel to almost certain and complete annihilation; secondly, that ma.s.ses of reserves urgently needed on the Continent had to be kept in these islands to counter the risks of invasion; thirdly, that the mobility of our Navy had to be sacrificed to the same necessity of domestic defence (hence the disaster to Admiral Cradock); and, finally, that Belgium and North-East France had to be abandoned to the enemy--to be recovered later, if possible, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.

One would have thought that at such a crisis of destiny our politicians would have faced the facts, would have realized that the time had come to summon the nation, as a disciplined whole, to front its peril and do its duty. If they had but had the courage to do so, who can doubt the loyalty of the response? But, once more, No! All sorts of irrelevant considerations of petty domestic politics--matters of votes and seats and party prejudices--determined the issue. The voluntary principle must at any cost be maintained sacrosanct and intact. Hence, to get the necessary men--or, rather, far fewer than the necessary men--every variety of extravagant and humiliating expedient had to be adopted.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money were squandered in advertis.e.m.e.nt and appeal, and a chaos of indiscriminate enlistment was inaugurated. Again, with what results? With these results: First, that myriads of middle-aged men with families have been taken while unmarried slackers have been left; secondly, that invaluable war-workers have been drawn from necessary tasks while useless wastrels have remained at large; thirdly, that the rate of recruiting has been spasmodic and wholly incalculable, that our armies have never been quite strong enough for the successive operations a.s.signed to them, and that consequently a vast, needless, and largely fruitless sacrifice of the very cream of our nation's manhood has taken place. To the idol of voluntarism a veritable holocaust of victims has been offered up.

IV. THE PRESENT SITUATION

The voluntary principle, after seventeen months of inconceivably destructive war, still nominally holds the field.[40] Our sovereign politicians have up to the present remained verbally true to it; but at what a price! They have indefinitely postponed victory; they have allowed the sphere of operations to be immensely enlarged; they have been compelled through sheer military feebleness to witness neutral nations being drawn on to the side of the enemy; they have been unable to strike a decisive blow anywhere. Thus the war drags on inconclusively at a cost of 5,000,000 and 2,000 casualties every day. But the voluntary principle has been respected and vindicated! Has it? True it is that there has been a magnificent response to the Government's appeals. The patriotism and devotion of one half of the nation have effectively enabled the other half to evade its duty. But the time has again come when the demand for more men is imperative. Voluntarism is making its last efforts. Its devotees in their desperate endeavours to prevent its formal abandonment are eliminating from it every element of free will, and are introducing every device of veiled compulsion.

Canva.s.sers and recruiting-sergeants have brought immense pressure to bear upon every eligible man, under threats that unless he "volunteers"

he will shortly be fetched, and fetched on less favourable terms than those now offered. Moreover, all sorts of other kinds of pressure are added. The papers are full of instances. For example, the Foreign Office is refusing pa.s.sports to men of military age; the great s.h.i.+pping lines are declining to take eligible emigrants; employers are refusing work to applicants who they think might serve. Finally, Mr. Asquith, in the House of Commons, gives the whole case away, and from the voluntarist point of view perpetrates the great apostasy, by admitting that our voluntary system of recruiting is "haphazard, capricious, and unjust,"

and by protesting that he has "no abstract or _a priori_ objection of any sort or kind to compulsion in time of war," adding that he has no intention whatever to go to the stake "in defence of what is called the voluntary principle."[41] Poor "voluntary principle"! Already abandoned in practice, and now thrown over by its former high-priest!

FOOTNOTES:

[40] This was written in December, 1915. A few weeks later the Military Service Bill became law. Compulsion is to be applied from March 1st, 1916.

[41] House of Commons debate, November 2nd, 1915.

V. THE FUTURE

Is there any shred or remnant of this deserted and discredited voluntary principle that is worth saving? There is not. It is the last disreputable relic of the extreme individualism of the Manchester School of the early nineteenth century, which taught a political theory that has been abandoned by all serious thinkers. Everyone now admits that it is the function of the State to secure as far as it can the conditions of the good life to its citizens. It is the logical and inevitable corollary that it is the duty of every citizen to support and safeguard the State. It has long been one of the gravest weaknesses of our modern democracy that, while it has insisted vehemently upon its claims against the State--claims to education, employment, office, insurance, pension, and so on--it has remained comparatively oblivious to its responsibilities. Its so-called political leaders, who too often are but self-seeking flatterers fawning for its favour, have persistently encouraged it to concentrate its efforts upon getting without giving. It has been taught that it is proper to use political power in pursuit of selfish aims and to employ all manner of compulsion therein; but in the matter of national service it has received soothing lessons on the surpa.s.sing glories of the voluntary principle. It is the State which is to be coerced by threats of pa.s.sive resistance or general strikes; but if the State attempts coercion in the exercise of its functions it is met by the pa.s.sionate proclamation of the rights of personal freedom.

Similarly, we have the amazing spectacle of Trade Unionists meeting in congress to condemn "conscription" and at the same time sanctioning the most extreme measures of illegal persecution to drive non-Unionists into the ranks of their own organizations. It is a monstrous and intolerable perversion of all sound political principles. The whole sorry business is a flagrant example of the subtle way in which a democracy can be cajoled, corrupted, and depraved.

I elaborated this point in a letter to the _Observer_ which the Editor kindly allows me to reprint here. It will be found in the issue of January 17th, 1915:

One of the most curious phenomena of present-day politics is the opposition offered by collectivists to conscription--under which term they persistently and disingenuously include both the compulsory service of the German army and the very different universal military training of the Swiss citizen.

Even Mr. Herbert Spencer and the extreme individualists of his school admitted that national defence is a proper function of the State, and that a government may rightly use compulsory powers to safeguard the community from attack.

But Mr. Arnold Bennett and the semi-socialists of the _Daily Chronicle_ and the _Daily News_--although they are filled with horror and indignation if it is suggested that an artisan should be allowed to choose whether or not he will enjoy the advantages of the Insurance Act; or that a collier, if he wishes to do so, should be permitted to work for more than eight hours a day; or that a labourer should be exempted from persecution as a blackleg if he prefers to remain outside the fold of a trade union--are fired with a long-dormant zeal for individual liberty, if it is urged that a young man's citizens.h.i.+p is incomplete until he has been called and prepared to defend his home and his country in case of need.

Their collectivism is, in fact, a peculiarly perverted or inverted type of individualism. It insists on the right of the individual, if unemployed, to come to the State for work; if in poverty, to come to the State for relief; if ignorant, to come to the State for education: but it strenuously resists the exercise by the State of its reciprocal claim on the service of the individual. It is engrossed by the contemplation of the rights of the individual and the duties of the State; it ignores the rights of the State and the duties of the individual.

It is true that our voluntary system of military service has done wonders in this war, far more indeed than could ever have been expected of it; but this does not alter the fact that it is _wrong in principle_. It is quite conceivable that a similar voluntary system of monetary contributions would, if compulsory taxation were abolished, supply the necessities of government; but it would be a most iniquitous system, pressing heavily on the generous, and allowing the n.i.g.g.ardly to escape. We all, in fact, admit that it would be entirely improper to replace the income-tax form by the begging-letter. For precisely the same reasons it is entirely improper that enlistment for home defence should depend on the voluntary sacrifice of the patriotic minority, while the careless and worthless majority elude their duty.

It is, moreover, deeply humiliating to the national pride to see the protection of our sh.o.r.es, and the existence of our Empire, dependent on the response made to advertis.e.m.e.nts, to platform appeals, to music-hall songs, and to the kisses so generously proffered by popular actresses.

It will be no small compensation for the immeasurable losses of this war if the lofty old-English ideals of duty and service are restored to their rightful place in our political system, and if in respect of the essentials of national existence, viz., defence of the realm and obedience to law, we completely eliminate and frankly repudiate--as we have already done in the sphere of taxation--the enervating one-sided individualism of the voluntary principle.

IV

Pa.s.sIVE RESISTANCE

I. THE NEW PERIL

For a long time past there has existed in this country a sort of smouldering rebellion known as pa.s.sive resistance. It is difficult to say when it had its origin; but probably it could be traced back to the Reformation. For it is merely a veiled manifestation of that anarchic individualism and that morbid conscientiousness--the extremes of qualities admirable in moderation--which first became formidable in England on the break-up of mediaeval Christendom. In recent times it has displayed itself in many new forms, and on an increasingly large scale, until now, in this great crisis of our fate, it has grown to be a serious menace to the national unity, and a grave danger to the very existence of the State. We have in our midst at the present day--to mention only the leading specimens--Ritualists who refuse to obey judgments of the Privy Council, or to heed injunctions issued by bishops appointed by the Crown; Anti-Vivisectionists who resist regulations regarded as essential by the health authorities; Undenominationalists who decline to pay rates necessary to maintain the system of education established by law; Christian Scientists whose criminal neglect in the case of dangerous diseases not only renders them guilty of homicide, but also imperils the welfare of the whole community; Suffragists who defy all law comprehensively, on the ground that the legislature from which it emanates is not const.i.tuted as they think it ought to be; Trade Unionists who combine to stultify any Act of Parliament which conflicts with the rules of their own organizations; and finally, a No-Conscription Fellows.h.i.+p whose members expressly "deny the right of Government to say, 'You _shall_ bear arms,'" and threaten to "oppose every effort to introduce compulsory military service into Great Britain."[42] Here is a pretty collection of aliens from the commonwealth! It contains examples of almost every variety of anti-social eccentricity. So diverse and conflicting are the types of pa.s.sive resistance represented that there is only one thing that can be predicated of all the members of all the groups, and it is this--that they are rebels.

FOOTNOTE:

[42] No-Conscription Manifesto printed in full in the _Morning Post_, May 31st, 1915.

II. Pa.s.sIVE RESISTANCE AS REBELLION