Part 3 (1/2)
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.