The Way to Win

It is a little difficult to understand the opposition to the principle of compulsory service. By the common law of almost all nations the State has the right to call upon the individual for assistance in protecting the State against the common enemy. I do not see, indeed, how this right can be disputed, for to dispute it would be to cut at the very foundations of organised society. One can, of course, readily understand wide differences of opinion as to the advisability or necessity of adopting a compulsory system, especially in the middle of a great war, but against the principle itself I fail to see any valid argument. Salus populi lex suprema. If the interests of the nation demand the introduction of compulsion, whether during a war or not, I cannot understand how it can be opposed either in principle or as a matter of expediency.

Now it must be quite clearly understood that, so far as Britain is concerned, the adoption of the principle of compulsion was purely a matter of expediency, and those lifelong opponents of compulsory service who found themselves able to support the Act sacrificed none of their convictions or principles in doing so. We had reached a stage in the War when the problem of finding enough men to keep our armies in the field up to full strength had become critical. Mr Asquith had pledged himself – quite rightly, as I think – that the married men who enlisted under the Derby group system should not be called up while any considerable number of single slackers remained deaf to every call that was made upon them. In this I believe he was absolutely right, and I believe he had behind him the vast preponderance of intelligent opinion in the country, including, though the fact has been disputed, the bulk of the working-class population. We were unquestionably drafting into the Army too large a proportion of married men, and widows and orphans were being made at a rate that was positively appalling. It was quite obvious that something must be done to put a stop to this condition of things, and the famous pledge of Mr Asquith was the result. And when it was found that the unmarried men still remained outside the Army, the passage into law of a measure of compulsion could be nothing more than a matter of time.

The Act was frankly a temporising measure, and my own personal belief is that it does not go nearly far enough. Mr Asquith has declared that he does not think the situation calls for a measure of general compulsion, and he must be in possession of facts which are hidden from the public. Present indications suggest that he is right; whether he was wise to bolt and bar the door to general compulsion so emphatically as he did is another matter. It was certainly a very remarkable statement of Lord Kitchener, reported to the House of Commons by Mr Walter Long, that the Act as it stood would provide all the men required to ensure victory, a statement which seems hardly to have attracted the attention that it deserved. Both Mr Asquith and Lord Kitchener may be right, and it is certainly true that our prospects are brighter than they have been for many months.

In view of what may conceivably happen in the future, there is one misconception with regard to national service which it is perhaps worth while to try to clear up. It is too hastily assumed that the men who are swept into the net of a compulsory system are necessarily drafted to the fighting ranks. This, of course, is a mistake pure and simple. One of the greatest advantages of the compulsory system is that by its means men can be employed just at the work where their services are most needed. It is quite certain that had we had a compulsory service system in operation when the War broke out we should have seen less of the enlistment into the fighting services of men whose brains and muscles were urgently needed in other directions. We should not, for instance, have seen three hundred thousand miners sent to the trenches while we were short of coal at home; we should not have seen our munition works held up through shortage of skilled labour consequent upon high-class mechanics joining the fighting line. Each man would have been sent to serve where he was most needed, and this, it seems to me, is one of the strongest arguments that can be adduced in favour of the principle of compulsion.

Under all the circumstances the adoption of compulsion has been achieved with wonderfully little disturbance. There have been none of those wild outbreaks of popular passion which were so strenuously forecasted by the thick-and-thin opponents of compulsion. As my readers are, of course, aware, the adoption of compulsion by President Lincoln during the American Civil War was followed by serious disturbances which had to be suppressed by troops brought from the front, and which caused grievous loss of life. We have seen nothing of the kind here, and I do not think we are likely to do so. The country is united and determined to win the War, and the anti-conscription efforts of certain misguided folk have been received with the contempt they deserved. The quiet acceptance of the Act is all the more remarkable when we remember that owing to the operation of the censorship the people generally were very ill-informed about the War, and it is certain that up to quite a recent date they did not realise all that was involved or the magnitude of the task we had undertaken. The wonder is not that a system of compulsion became necessary, but that under the bad system of secrecy we succeeded in raising armies totalling some three millions of men by the voluntary plan. There could be no greater testimony to the genuine patriotism of the workers of England. Happily, the country is now more fully awake to the facts of the situation, and has achieved a better realisation of what the struggle really means.

Nothing has been more remarkable than the attitude of Labour on this subject. We have been told over and over again that the workers of Britain would never accept the principle of compulsion; we have found, in fact, that it has gained the support of all that is best in the Labour ranks. There can be no doubt that one of the greatest difficulties in the way was the hasty and ill-advised resolution passed by the Trade Union Congress at Bristol in January, 1915. It is not necessary to enter into the causes which led to the passing of that most unhappy resolution. Suffice it to say that it put the Trade Unionists in the position of declaring that they would prefer to see the Empire go to ruin rather than see the principle of compulsion introduced. I felt at the time – and subsequent events have justified my belief – that this was a grave libel upon the patriotism of our workers. The Merthyr by-election, when the official Liberal and Labour candidate was decisively beaten by an Independent candidate, who won a tremendous victory on a straight compulsion issue in a constituency which had always been regarded as a stronghold of every idea that would be opposed to compulsion, came as a dramatic surprise. In all probability that election did more than any other single thing to make compulsion possible, and it certainly showed that the working classes of this country had changed their minds on a subject on which it was supposed their minds were irrevocably made up. We were to learn later that their opposition to compulsion was based not on compulsion itself, but on the fear that conscripts would be used to settle industrial troubles as was done in the case of the French railway strike. But the assurance on this head given by Mr Asquith seems to have removed what latent hostility there was to the proposals of the Government, and as a result there is every prospect that the Act will work as smoothly as we could desire or expect.

Under all the circumstances it is easy to sympathise with the attitude of the Labour leaders when they met for the Trade Union Congress of 1916. They found themselves faced with the resolution passed twelve months before under very different circumstances. They knew better – they had been told frankly by Lord Kitchener – the extreme urgency of our needs, and they certainly had no desire to embarrass the Government or stand in the way of the Empire winning the victory. But we have to recognise the facts of human nature. It is not easy for any of us to eat our words, and yet it seemed as if the Congress must either do so or take up a frankly disloyal attitude. They were deeply pledged against compulsion, and it needs no very powerful effort of the imagination to see that they were in a position of some difficulty.

Luckily, a way was found out of the seeming impasse. The Congress decided to adhere to its resolution condemning compulsory service as a matter of principle, but it decisively defeated a proposal to work for the repeal of the Act which had already been passed. The national spirit of compromise came strongly to the front. I wrote before the Congress met: “However difficult it may be for them to swallow the very definite declaration of the last Congress, I think the majority of them, if the present recruiting movement fails, will loyally accept the logical sequel.” Those words were abundantly justified. In view of the partial failure of Lord Derby’s scheme, the Congress took the natural and proper view. Abating none of their strongly held objections to compulsion, they accepted the Bill as the lesser of two evils: better put up with a modified measure of compulsion now than endure defeat, with all the horrors that it would imply, in the future. And there can be no reasonable doubt that that view is far more widely held among the working classes than is shown by the voting of a caucus in which the most extreme Socialist and Syndicalist element has secured a measure of representation which it does not deserve.

As to whether the Act will give us all the men we need, we can only go on and hope for the best. Lord Kitchener apparently thinks it will, and he ought to be in a position to know. But we have to remember that in modern warfare the drain upon an army and the wastage of men – not only from actual casualties in fighting, but from sickness and other causes – is appalling. It has been officially stated that our losses by wastage from all causes amount to fifteen per cent, per month of all the forces in the field. That is to say, that if we have a million men under arms they will have to be replaced every six months! And even this appalling rate of loss might well be exceeded if fighting became very severe; if, for instance, we had to fight battles such as the first and second battles of Ypres. Fighting on an even larger scale, it must be remembered, is only too probable if the Allies undertake the “big push” which shall throw the Huns out of their entrenchments in the West, to say nothing of a possible advance from Salonica and more fighting in Mesopotamia. It will thus be seen that the requirements of the Army in the matter of drafts during the next few months will be on a gigantic scale, and we cannot afford to run the risk of being short of men.

The time is assuredly coming when the German reserves will begin to give out in view of the enormous extent of front they had to defend. That will be the opportunity of the Allies; and unless we are then in a position swiftly to make good all possible losses and fling more and ever more men into the fight to administer the coup de grâce, the War may well drag on – almost certainly it would drag on – to an inconclusive ending which would be only one remove less disastrous than defeat. It is against such a possibility as this that we have to guard, and we can only do so by deciding that, cost what it may – whether by compulsion or not, whether only the single men are taken or whether every able-bodied man shall be swept into the ranks – the fighting lines of our armies shall be maintained at fighting strength. So much we owe to ourselves, to our Empire, and to the thousands of gallant souls who have given their all in order that we may live out our lives in peace. To falter now would be not only ingratitude to the fallen, but would be the blackest treachery to everything which we know as civilisation.

Mr Asquith has declared that he will be no party to any further measure of general compulsion. I can only assume that he means by this that he is confident of victory under existing circumstances, and I hope and believe he is right. But it would be foolish to disguise from ourselves that war is a very “chancy” and uncertain business, and that there are few subjects upon which it is more foolhardy to dogmatise. We have seen something during this War of the wreck which has fallen on the reputations of the military “experts.” And, believe we never so strongly in victory, there is no disguising the fact that our expectations may be falsified by events. In such a case – supposing we require more men than we can obtain by the measure of limited compulsion that we have adopted – are we to lose the War for want of stronger measures? That will hardly, I think, be contended, and if the men wanted are not forthcoming they must be found by sterner measures.

“We must win or go under” is the great truth we have to keep for ever before our eyes and before the eyes of our fellow-countrymen. And to secure victory there must be no half-measures. If Mr Asquith finds himself unable to undertake the task of raising the men urgently needed – should more be required – other men and other measures must fill the gaps. On that point, at least, there must be no faltering.

I do not believe the workers to-day are troubling themselves very greatly about the nice ethical points for or against the principle of compulsion. They are judging on broad lines, and I am confident they view the question in a light very different from that in which they regarded it when the War broke out. Since those days they have learnt from the example of Belgium and France what is involved in German rule, and their change of views has been helped by a realisation of the magnitude of the task which lies before us. They know that the War is for us a matter of self-preservation, and I believe such opposition to compulsion as still survives comes solely from other and more doctrinaire classes. What the country asks from the Government is a clear and unmistakable lead. If the Government will but take the nation fully and frankly into its confidence, if those who are entitled to speak for the nation will call upon the nation for the greatest and supremest effort of its history, I do not believe there will be any hesitation in the response whether we decide to extend the principle of compulsion or not. I believe the result will be to astonish and confound those who have more or less openly suggested that the spirit of England is not what it was, and that the Englishman has lost in a great measure the stern invincibility and determination which in his forefathers made England what she is and has always been.

So far we have adopted what Lord Lansdowne has described as “a homeopathic dose” of compulsion. The description is apt; I hope the dose will be sufficient to dispel the disease. But there is one point on which we must be on our guard: the list of “reserved” trades whose men are not to be taken for the Army is growing at an alarming rate. We know that one of the results of this has been to cut down very seriously the number of men who ought to have joined the colours under Lord Derby’s group scheme; we must be careful lest we lose more men than we should from the same cause under the Compulsion Act. It is necessary, of course, that our trade must be kept going as far as possible; otherwise we shall not be able to pay for the War.

But we must remember at the same time that victory is and must be our first consideration, for without this we shall have no trade to look after. And if, in our eagerness to conserve our trade, we neglect or starve the fighting forces, we shall pay a terrible and appalling penalty. That is the worst of doing things by halves; one generally finds in the long run that it would have been better and cheaper to have made a good job at the first. It is more than likely that the “reserved” occupations will turn out to be the crux of the whole question, and the rapidly growing lists give rise to a feeling of apprehension as to whether we shall not fail, if they are extended indefinitely, to get the men we require. I earnestly hope that this most important subject is receiving careful attention, and that we shall have such periodical revisions of the lists as experience may show to be necessary. All will be well so long as we do not risk, for the sake of supposed trade advantages, any shortage of men in the actual fighting lines.

The willing adoption by our people of the principle of compulsion has been Britain’s master-stroke in this war. Nothing else, I am convinced, could have had such an effect upon our friends, our enemies, and the neutral nations, whether friendly to us or the reverse. Nothing else could have shown so clearly the unalterable determination of the British people, or proved so unmistakably that at length – late, it is true, but better late than never – the cold and deadly pertinacity of Britain, the dour temper which never knows when it is beaten and never lets go, has been fully roused. Britain, it is said, wins but one victory in every war, but that victory is the last. That is one victory we mean to win in this War, if it takes us ten or twenty years to do it. We fought Napoleon for twenty years; we won the last victory at Waterloo. It will not be twenty years before the Allies win the victory that shall put an end to the pretensions of the upstart who aspires to be the Napoleon of the twentieth century.