which the late Lord Roberts was the enthusiastic president.
Even the Swiss citizen army, so often held up as a model, has become more Prussianised every year. Its men have been used to suppress strikes; severe hardships from exposure have occurred, sometimes ending in death; many instances of arrogance and brutality on the part of officers have taken place; and the military authorities are continually demanding longer training periods. The chief of the Military Staff, in response to a deputation asking that the Army should be placed on a democratic basis like other Departments, said: "Every army worthy of the name is necessarily autocratic, and in its organisation is the antithesis of democracy."
There is the kernel of the whole matter. Army organisation is necessarily autocratic, and as soon as enlistment becomes compulsory the principal safeguard against abuse is removed. Following the doctrine of "military necessity" (the same plea advanced by the Germans for their violation of Belgian territory; by the Federals for the deliberate devastation of hundreds of square miles of the United States; by the British authorities for farm-burning and concentration camps in South Africa) Australian lads have been sentenced by military officers to solitary detention for continuous periods ranging up to ten days because they could not conscientiously undergo military training.
At the enquiry before Mr. Justice Rich into conditions at the Liverpool (N.S.W.) camp a military witness "explained that he was a staff officer, and was in a difficult position. If he gave certain answers it would not do him any good. As far as victimisation was concerned, the Minister of Defence had not given a direct answer to Senator Millen's question. In the circumstances witness was not asked certain questions.[1] (The emphasis is ours.) In other words, military influence was allowed to over-ride the jurisdiction of a judge of the Federal High Court, appointed by the Government as a commission of enquiry. The Staff Sergeant-Major in question was presumably a voluntary officer, with the right to resign after a given period; how much stronger would the grip be on the conscript private?
The "Argus,"[2] while complaining of the failure of the Defence Department to arrange for the public reception of wounded soldiers from Gallipoli, made this comment:—"The cause of this remarkable negligence seems to be the fatal inability of the military mind to appreciate public feeling. The home-coming of the men, in the opinion of the military officials, had nothing to do with the public; it was a military matter. The public, however, feels that a private soldier is something more than a pawn, and that a man who has shed his blood and risked his life is worthy of honour." Such an obiter dictum from a journal strongly favouring conscription is in itself a warning to those who value the liberty of the people.
3. That conscription is beneficial morally. The chief grounds for this plea in favour of conscription is that discipline and obedience are fostered. It has been said that obedience is "non-moral," i.e., neither good nor bad in itself. You may have the very strictest discipline on a pirate ship or under a brigand chief. Modern edu-
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