Part 1 (1/2)

Freedom In Service.

by Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw.

PREFACE

The first three essays in this little book appeared originally as special articles in the _Morning Post_. I am greatly indebted to the Editor of that paper for his courteous and ready permission to reprint them. The ”Freedom” dealt with in these essays is political freedom, and the ”Service” advocated is universal military service. These limitations are due to the fact that the original newspaper articles were contributions to the controversy respecting methods of enlistment which took place during the autumn of 1915.

The remaining three essays appear now for the first time. They have a more general scope, although they are vitally connected with the theme of their predecessors. The essay on Pa.s.sive Resistance has special reference to the opposition offered by the No-Conscription Fellows.h.i.+p to the principle of compulsory military service; but its argument applies equally well to the older antagonists of the authority of the State.

The essay on Christianity and War tries to meet those conscientious objections to military service which form the basis of the propaganda of the Fellows.h.i.+p of Reconciliation; but it deals with the problem in the broadest manner possible within the limits of its s.p.a.ce. The concluding essay, on the State and its Rivals, emphasizes the imperative need that the authority of the Democratic National State should be recognized and accepted if internal anarchy is to be avoided, and if the peace and well-being of the World are to be secured.

F. J. C. HEARNSHAW.

King's College, Strand, W.C.

_January 12th, 1916._

FREEDOM IN SERVICE

I

THE ANCIENT DEFENCE OF ENGLAND[1]

[Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the _Morning Post_ of August 20th, 1915.]

I. UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE

”The military system of the Anglo-Saxons is based upon universal service, under which is to be understood the duty of every freeman to respond in person to the summons to arms, to equip himself at his own expense, and to support himself at his own charge during the campaign.”[2]

With these words Gneist, the German historian of the English Const.i.tution, begins his account of the early military system of our ancestors. He is, of course, merely stating a matter of common knowledge to all students of Teutonic inst.i.tutions. What he says of the Anglo-Saxon is equally true of the Franks, the Lombards, the Visigoths, and other kindred peoples.[3] But it is a matter of such fundamental importance that I will venture, even at the risk of tedious repet.i.tion, to give three parallel quotations from English authorities. Grose, in his _Military Antiquities_, says: ”By the Saxon laws every freeman of an age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency obliged to join the army.”[4] Freeman, in his _Norman Conquest_, speaks of ”the right and duty of every free Englishman to be ready for the defence of the Commonwealth with arms befitting his own degree in the Commonwealth.”[5] Finally, Stubbs, in his _Const.i.tutional History_, clearly states the case in the words: ”The host was originally the people in arms, the whole free population, whether landowners or dependents, their sons, servants, and tenants. Military service was a personal obligation ... the obligation of freedom”; and again: ”Every man who was in the King's peace was liable to be summoned to the host at the King's call.”[6]

There is no ambiguity or uncertainty about these p.r.o.nouncements. The Old English ”fyrd,” or militia, was the nation in arms. The obligation to serve was a personal one. It had no relation to the possession of land; in fact it dated back to an age in which the folk was still migratory and without a fixed territory at all. It was inc.u.mbent upon all able-bodied males between the ages of sixteen and sixty. Failure to obey the summons was punished by a heavy fine known as ”fyrdwite.”[7]

There is another point of prime significance. Universal service was, it is true, an obligation. But it was more: it was the _mark of freedom_.

Not to be summoned stamped a man as a slave, a serf, or an alien. The famous ”a.s.size of Arms” ends with the words: ”_Et praecepit rex quod nullus reciperetur ad sacramentum armorum nisi liber h.o.m.o._”[8] A summons was a right quite as much as a duty. The English were a brave and martial race, proud of their ancestral liberty. Not to be called to defend it when it was endangered, not to be allowed to carry arms to maintain the integrity of the fatherland, was a degradation which branded a man as unfree.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This chapter has been issued as a pamphlet by the National Service League, 72, Victoria Street, S.W.

[2] Gneist, R. _Englische Verfa.s.sungsgeschichte_, p. 4.