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FREEDOM IN SERVICE
SIX ESSAYS ON MATTERS CONCERNING BRITAIN'S SAFETY AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
By F. J. C. HEARNSHAW, M.A., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF MEDIÆVAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1916
TO THE GLORIOUS AND IMMORTAL MEMORY OF LORD ROBERTS
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE ix
I.--THE ANCIENT DEFENCE OF ENGLAND
I. UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE 1
II. THE OLD ENGLISH MILITIA 4
III. MEDIÆVAL REGULATIONS 6
IV. TUDOR AND STUART DEVELOPMENTS 9
V. THE LAST TWO CENTURIES 12
VI. CONCLUSION 15
II.--COMPULSORY SERVICE AND LIBERTY
I. THE PLEA OF FREEDOM 17
II. THE TERM "LIBERTY" 18
III. LIBERTY AS FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN CONTROL 20
IV. LIBERTY AS SYNONYMOUS WITH RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT 21
V. LIBERTY AS ABSENCE OF RESTRAINT 23
VI. LIBERTY AS OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE 27
III.--THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
I. THE IDEA OF VOLUNTARISM 30
II. ITS ESTABLISHMENT 31
III. THE RESULT 33
IV. THE PRESENT SITUATION 36
V. THE FUTURE 38
IV.--PASSIVE RESISTANCE
I. THE NEW PERIL 43
II. PASSIVE RESISTANCE AS REBELLION 45
III. THE RIGHT OF REBELLION 47
IV. REBELLION AGAINST A DEMOCRACY 50
V. THE DUTY OF THE STATE 55
V.--CHRISTIANITY AND WAR
I. A CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS 58
II. THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE 61
III. THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH 63
IV. FORCE AS A MORAL INSTRUMENT 66
V. THE IDEAL OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 69
VI. THE PACIFICIST SUCCESSION 74
VII. CONCLUSION 78
VI.--THE STATE AND ITS RIVALS
I. THE IDEA OF THE STATE IN ENGLAND 81
II. THE RIVALS OF THE STATE 87
III. WHAT THE STATE IS AND DOES 95
IV. THE SPHERE OF NATIONAL SERVICE 98
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 Passive Resistance has special
reference to the opposition offered by the No-Conscription Fellowship 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 Fellowship of Reconciliation; but it deals with the problem in the
broadest manner possible within the limits of its space. 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
Constitution, 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 institutions. 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 repetition,
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 _Constitutional
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 pronouncements. 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 incumbent 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 "Assize of Arms" ends with the words: "_Et praecepit rex quod
nullus reciperetur ad sacramentum armorum nisi liber homo._"[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 Verfassungsgeschichte_, p. 4.
[3] Cf. the Frankish Edict of A.D. 864: "Ad defensionem patriæ omnes
sine ulla excusatione veniant." (Let all without any excuse come for the
defence of the fatherland.)
[4] Grose, F. _Military Antiquities_, vol. i, p. 1.
[5] Freeman, E. _Norman Conquest_, vol. iv, p. 681.
[6] Stubbs, W. _Const. Hist._, vol. i, pp. 208, 212.
[7] Oman, C. W. C. _Art of War in the Middle Ages_, p. 67.
[8] Stubbs, W. _Select Charters_, p. 156. (The King orders that no one
except a freeman shall be admitted to the oath of arms.)
II. THE OLD ENGLISH MILITIA
This primitive national militia was not, it must be admitted, a very
efficient force. It lacked coherence and training; it was deficient both
in arms and in discipline; it could not be kept together for long
campaigns. The Kings, therefore, from the first supplemented it by means
of a band of personal followers, a bodyguard of professional warriors,
well and uniformly armed, and practised in the art of war. Nevertheless,
the main defence of the country rested with the "fyrd." The Danish
invasions put it to the severest test and revealed its military defects.
It was one of the most notable achievements of Alfred to reorganize and
reconstitute it. Thus reformed, with the support of an ever-growing body
of King's thegns, it wrought great deeds in the days of Alfred, Edward
and Athelstan, and recovered for England security and peace. In the days
of their weaker successors, however, all the forces that England could
muster failed to keep out Sweyn and Canute, and, above all, failed to
hold the field at Hastings.
The Norman Conquest might have been expected to involve the extinction
of the English militia. For feudalism as developed by William I was
strongest on its military side, and William's main force was the levy of
his feudal tenants. But quite the contrary happened. The Norman monarchs
and their Angevin successors were, as a matter of fact, mortally afraid
of their great feudal tenants, the barons and knights through whom the
Conquest had been effected. Hence, as English kings, they assiduously
maintained and fostered Anglo-Saxon institutions, and particularly the
"fyrd," which they used as a counterpoise to the feudal levy. They even
called upon it for Continental service and took it across the Channel to
defend their French provinces.[9] Thus in 1073 it fought for William I
in Maine; in 1094 William II summoned it to Hastings for an expedition
into Normandy; in 1102 it aided Henry I to suppress the formidable
revolt of Robert of Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury; in 1138 it drove back
the Scots at the Battle of the Standard; and in 1174 it defeated and
captured William the Lion at Alnwick. So valuable, indeed, did it prove
to be that Henry II resolved to place it upon a permanent footing and
clearly to define its position. With that view he issued in 1181 his
"Assize of Arms."
FOOTNOTE:
[9] Stubbs, W. _Select Charters_, p. 83; and _Const. Hist._, vol. i, p.
469.
III. MEDIÆVAL REGULATIONS
Into the details of the "Assize of Arms" it is unnecessary here to
enter. Are they not written in every advanced text-book of English
history? Three things, however, are to be noted. First, that the duty
and privilege of military service are still bound up with freedom; no
unfree man is to be admitted to the oath of arms. Secondly, that upon
freemen the obligation is still universal: "all burgesses and the whole
community of freemen (_tota communa liberorum hominum_) are to provide
themselves with doublets, iron skullcaps, and lances." Thirdly, that,
closely as freedom had during the centuries of feudalism become
associated with tenancy of land, the national militia had not been
involved in feudal meshes: the obligation of service remained still
personal, not territorial.
In 1205 John, fearing an invasion of the Kingdom, called to arms all the
militia sworn and equipped under the Assize, _i.e._, all the freemen of
the realm. Short-shrift was to be given to any who disobeyed the
summons: "_Qui vero ad summonitionem non venerit habeatur pro capitali
inimico domini regis et regni_" (He who does not come in response to the
summons shall be regarded as a capital enemy of the king and kingdom.)
The penalty was to be the peculiarly appropriate one of reduction to
perpetual servitude. The disobedient and disloyal subject who made the
great refusal would _ipso facto_ divest himself of the distinguishing
mark of his freedom.[10]
Henry III in 1223 and 1231 made similar levies. In 1252, in a notable
writ for enforcing Watch and Ward and the Assize of Arms, he extended
the obligation of service to villans and lowered the age limit to
fifteen. Edward I reaffirmed these new departures in his well-known
Statute of Winchester (1285), in which it is enacted that "every man
have in his house harness for to keep the peace after the ancient
assize, that is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty
years." Further, he enlarged the armoury of the militiaman by including
among his weapons the axe and the bow.[11]
The long, aggressive wars of Edward I in Wales and Scotland, and the
still longer struggles of the fourteenth century in France, could not,
of course, be waged by means of the national militia. Even the feudal
levy was unsuited to their requirements. They were waged mainly by means
of hired professional armies. Parliament--a new factor in the
Constitution--took pains in these circumstances to limit by statute the
liabilities of the old national forces. An Act of 1328 decreed that no
one should be compelled to go beyond the bounds of his own county,
except when necessity or a sudden irruption of foreign foes into the
realm required it.[12] Another Act, 1352, provided that the militia
should not be compelled to go beyond the realm in any circumstances
whatsoever without the consent of Parliament.[13] Both these Acts were
confirmed by Henry IV in 1402.[14] But the old obligation of universal
service for home defence remained intact. It was, in fact, enforced by
Edward IV in 1464, when, on his own authority, he ordered the Sheriffs
to proclaim that "every man from sixteen to sixty be well and defensibly
arrayed and ... be ready to attend on his Highness upon a day's warning
in resistance of his enemies and rebels and the defence of this his
realm."[15] This notable incident carries us to the end of the Middle
Ages, and shows us the Old English principle in vigorous operation.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Gervase of Canterbury. _Gesta Regum_, vol. ii, p. 97.
[11] _Statutes of the Realm_, vol. i, pp. 96-8.
[12] 1 Ed. III, c. 2. §§5-7.
[13] 25 Ed. III, c. 5. §8.
[14] 4 Hy. IV, c. 13.
[15] Rymer, T. _Foedera_, vol. xi, p. 524.
IV. TUDOR AND STUART DEVELOPMENTS
The Wars of the Roses, so fatal to the feudal nobility, left the
national militia the only organized force in the country. The Tudor
period, it is true, saw the faint foreshadowing of a regular army in
Henry VII's Yeomen of the Guard, and the nucleus of a volunteer force in
the Honourable Artillery Company, established in London under Henry
VIII. But these at the time had little military importance, and England
remained dependent for her defence throughout the sixteenth century,
that age of unprecedented prosperity and glory, upon her militant
manhood. Hence the Tudor monarchs paid great attention to the
maintenance and equipment of the militia. The practice (which had grown
up in the later Middle Ages) of limiting the normal call to arms to a
certain quota of men from each county was revived. If the required
numbers were not forthcoming compulsion was employed. Statutes were
passed making discipline more rigid. Lords Lieutenant were instituted to
take over the command, with added powers, from the Sheriffs. An
important Mustering Statute (1557) was enacted, graduating afresh the
universal liability to service, and making new provision for weapons and
organization.[16] William Harrison, writing in 1587, said: "As for able
men for service, thanked be God! we are not without good store; for by
the musters taken 1574-5 our numbers amounted to 1,172,674, and yet were
they not so narrowly taken but that a third part of this like multitude
was left unbilled and uncalled."[17] This from a population estimated at
less than six million all told! Such was the host on which England
relied for safety in 1588, if by chance the galleons of Spain should
elude the vigilance of Drake and should land Parma's hordes upon our
shores. Well might the country feel at ease behind such a fleet and with
such a virile race of men to second it.
The Stuarts did not take kindly to the English militia. It was too
democratic, too free. James I, in the very first year of his reign,
conferred upon its members the seductive but fatal gift of exemption
from the burden of providing their own weapons.[18] As he himself took
care not to provide them too profusely, the force speedily lost both in
efficiency and independence. The Civil War hopelessly divided it, as it
did the nation, into hostile factions. The Royalist section was
ultimately crushed, while the Parliamentary section was gradually
absorbed into that first great standing army which this country ever
knew, the New Model of 1645. For fifteen years the people groaned under
the dominance of this arbitrary, conscientious, and very expensive
force. Then, in 1660, came the Restoration, and with it the disbanding
of the New Model and the re-establishment of the militia. The country
went wild with joy at the recovery of its freedom.
Charles II, however, was bent on securing for his own despotic purposes
a standing army. Hence he obtained permission from Parliament to have a
permanent bodyguard, and he gradually increased its numbers until he had
some 6,000 troops regularly under his command. James II increased them
to 15,000, and by their means tried to overthrow the religion and the
liberties of the nation. He was defeated and driven out; but his effort
to establish a military despotism made the name of "standing army" stink
in the nostrils of the nation. "It is indeed impossible," said one of
the leading statesmen of the early eighteenth century, "that the
liberties of the people can be preserved in any country where a numerous
standing army is kept up."[19] The national militia continued, as of
old, to stand for freedom and self-government. The voluntarily enlisted
standing army was regarded as the engine and emblem of tyranny.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] 4-5 P. and M., c. 2.
[17] Harrison, W. _Elizabethan England_, chap. xxii.
[18] 1 Jac. I, c. 25.
[19] Speech by Pulteney, A.D. 1732: See _Parl. Hist._, vol. viii, p.
904.
V. THE LAST TWO CENTURIES
The eighteenth century saw a constant struggle on the part of
constitutionalists to get rid of the standing army altogether. Army
Acts, which recognized and regulated the new force, were limited in
their operation to a year at a time, and were passed under incessant
protest. Grants to maintain the army were similarly restricted. Every
interval of peace witnessed the rapid reduction of the regulars. But the
times were adverse. Wars were frequent, and on an ever-increasing scale
of magnitude and duration. The standing army had to be maintained, and,
indeed, steadily enlarged.
But the militia for home defence was never allowed to become extinct,
and it enjoyed an immense popularity. In 1757 it was carefully
reorganized by statute.[20] The number of men to be raised was settled,
and each district was compelled to provide a certain proportion. The
selection was to be made by ballot, to the complete exclusion of the
voluntary principle. During the Napoleonic war, when invasion seemed
imminent, the militia was several times called out and embodied. In 1803
an actual levy _en masse_ of all men between the ages of seventeen and
fifty-five was made. In 1806 the principle of universal obligation on
which it was based was clearly stated by Castlereagh in the House of
Commons. He spoke of "the undoubted prerogative of the Crown to call
upon the services of all liege subjects in case of invasion."[21]
At the moment when he spoke, however, the imminent fear of invasion had
been removed--removed, indeed, for a century--by Nelson's crowning
victory at Trafalgar. From that time forward the military forces of the
Crown were required not so much for the defence of the United Kingdom
itself as for the provision of garrisons for the vast Empire which had
grown up during the eighteenth century. These imperial garrisons had
necessarily to be drawn from professional troops voluntarily enlisted.
Thus the militia declined. An effort was made in 1852 to revive it, and
again the underlying principle of compulsion was explicitly recognized.
The Militia Act of that year[22] contains the provision: "In case it
appears to H.M. ---- that the number of men required ... cannot be raised
by voluntary enlistment ... or in case of actual invasion or imminent
danger thereof, it shall be lawful for H.M. ---- to order and direct
that the number of men so required ... shall be raised by ballot as
herein provided." The effort at revival was unfortunately vain, and when
in 1859 international trouble again seemed to be brewing, instead of
appealing once more to the immemorial defence of the country, the
Government weakly and with most deplorable results allowed the formation
of a new body, the volunteers--a body whose patriotism was noble, whose
intentions were admirable, but whose inefficiency became and remained a
byword.[23] The militia continued ingloriously, mainly as a nursery for
the regular army.
Finally, in 1908, Mr. (now Lord) Haldane absorbed both volunteers and
militia into the new Territorial and Reserve Forces, the militia
becoming a Special Reserve.[24] It is much to be regretted that the Act
of 1908 did not expressly reaffirm the continued validity of the
compulsory principle of service which from the earliest times had been
the basis of the militia. But, though it did not expressly reaffirm it,
it left it absolutely unimpaired and intact. Said Mr. Haldane himself in
the House of Commons on April 13th, 1910: "The Militia Ballot Acts and
the Acts relating to the local militia are still unrepealed, and could
be enforced if necessary."
FOOTNOTES:
[20] 31 Geo. II, c. 26.
[21] Cobbett. _Parliamentary Debates_, vol. vii, p. 818.
[22] 15-16 Vict. c. 50. §18.
[23] For occasional levies of volunteers from sixteenth century onwards,
see Medley, D. J., _Const. Hist._, p. 472.
[24] 7 Ed. VII, c. 9.
VI. CONCLUSION
Such is the condition of things at the present time. The principle of
compulsory military service, obligatory upon every able-bodied male
between the ages of sixteen and sixty, is still the fundamental
principle of English Law, both Common Law and Statute Law. It has been
obscured by the pernicious voluntary principle, which, in the
much-abused name of Liberty, has shifted a universal national duty upon
the shoulders of the patriotic few. But it has never been revoked or
repudiated.
It is not National Service, but the Voluntary System, that is
un-English and unhistoric. The Territorial Army dates from 1908; the
Volunteers from 1859; the Regular Army itself only from 1645. But for a
millennium before the oldest of them the ancient defence of England was
the Nation in Arms. When will it be so again?
II
COMPULSORY SERVICE AND LIBERTY
[Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the _Morning
Post_ of September 28th, 1915.]
I. THE PLEA OF FREEDOM
The opponents of national service pursue two lines of argument, the one
historical, the other theoretical. Along the line of history they try to
show that compulsory military duty is alien from the English
Constitution, and that the voluntary system is the good old system by
means of which Great Britain has maintained her independence, achieved
her glories, and founded her Empire. Along the line of political theory
they contend that the demand for national service is contrary to the
spirit of liberty, that freedom is an essential characteristic of the
English genius, that Britons may be persuaded but not coerced, and so
on.
In the preceding study I have shown the utter baselessness of the
historical argument, pointed out that compulsory service was the very
foundation of the Anglo-Saxon system of defence, and concluded that
whereas "the Territorial Army dates from 1908, the Volunteers from 1859,
the Regular Army itself only from 1645, for a millennium before the
oldest of them the ancient defence of England was the Nation in Arms." I
now turn to the theoretical argument, and propose to consider what is
meant by the term "liberty," and ask whether the compulsion involved in
national service is incompatible with liberty properly understood.
II. THE TERM "LIBERTY"
There can be no doubt that in this country, as in America, the term
"liberty" enjoys much popularity. Sir John Seeley has remarked that just
as "its unlimited generality" makes it "delightful to poets," so its
harmonious sound is so grateful to the ears of the public at large that
"if a political speech did not frequently mention liberty," no one would
"know what to make of it or where to applaud."[25] Matthew Arnold goes
so far as to speak of "our worship of freedom," and to depict liberty
as the object of a fanatical semi-religious adoration.[26] But as a rule
where an Englishman adores he does not define, and if one asks the
common devotee of liberty what he understands by the abstraction before
which he prostrates himself, one generally requires but a small portion
of the dialectic subtlety of Socrates to involve him in a hopeless
tangle of contradictions. He can no more define liberty than he can
locate his soul. Mr. D. G. Ritchie truly says: "Many crimes have been
done, and a still greater amount of nonsense talked in the name of
liberty."[27] Seeley, with as much justice as pungency, asserts that
some writers "teach us to call by the name of liberty whatever in
politics we want," and so lead us to disguise our selfishness and
cowardice in the stolen garb of moral principle.[28] At any rate, there
is urgent need that before we either support or oppose any practical
political measure in the name of liberty, we should clear our minds of
confusion, and should reach an understanding of what precisely we mean
by this vast and vague expression. It will be found, I think, upon
examination, that the term "liberty," as employed in the sphere of
politics, has four distinct connotations. I hope to show that in no one
of these four senses is liberty incompatible with the compulsory element
implicit in the principle of national service.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Seeley. _Introduction to Political Science_, pp. 103-4.
[26] Arnold. _Culture and Anarchy_, chap. ii.
[27] Ritchie. _Natural Rights_, p. 135.
[28] Seeley: _op. cit._, p. 103.
III. LIBERTY AS FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN CONTROL
"A free nation," says Sir William Temple, "is that which has never been
conquered, or thereby entered into any condition of subjection."[29] In
this sense of freedom from foreign domination liberty is the immemorial
boast of Britons. They never have been, or will be, slaves. They are,
and they are determined to remain--so they proudly sing--free as the
waves that wash their shores, free as the winds that sweep their hills.
They are resolved that no alien tyrant shall plant his foot upon their
necks. As in the Middle Ages they repudiated the claim of German
Emperors and Ultramontane Popes to exercise political sovereignty over
them; as in more modern times they resisted conquest by the Spaniard
Philip and the Corsican Napoleon; even so would they resist to the
extreme limit of endurance any attempt to-day to reduce them to
servitude. The proposition that freedom in this sense of national
independence is consistent with compulsory military service needs no
demonstration at all. So far from there being any incompatibility
between the two, it is probable that only by means of a manhood
universally trained to the use of arms can the freedom of Britain and
the integrity of the Empire be ultimately maintained. We shall almost
certainly have to choose, not between national service and liberty, but
between national service and destruction.
FOOTNOTE:
[29] Temple. _Works_ ii, p. 87.
IV. LIBERTY AS SYNONYMOUS WITH RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
In a second and somewhat looser sense "Liberty is regarded as the
equivalent of Parliamentary government."[30] We speak of one type of
Constitution as "free" and of another type as "unfree." The so-called
"free" type of government is that in which political power rests in the
hands of the Democracy, whereas in "unfree" States the people are in
subjection to a ruling person or class. From the point of view of the
individual subject this distinction has no meaning at all. For the laws
passed by a Democratic Parliament are coercive and compulsory in
precisely the same manner and degree as are the laws of a despotic
monarchy or a close oligarchy. There is, indeed, a "tyranny of the
majority" which can be quite as oppressive to the individual as the
tyranny of the one or the few, and much less easy to evade. From the
point of view of the enfranchised community, however, the term "free"
has a meaning, and its use can be defended. For if the electorate be
regarded as a unit, akin to an organism, government becomes
self-government, and any obligations which the community places upon
itself by means of laws can be looked upon as self-limitations, imposed
by free-will and capable of removal at any moment by the unfettered
exercise of the power which imposed them. From this communal point of
view, however, it is evident that national service involves no
diminution of liberty. The community becomes not one whit less free
because it decides to train itself in the use of arms and to mobilize
all its resources for military purposes. It retains its capacity to
demobilize any time it likes, to lay aside its arms, to pension off its
drill sergeants, and to return to the paths of pacificism whenever it
seems safe to do so.
FOOTNOTE:
[30] Seeley: _op. cit._, p. 114.
V. LIBERTY AS ABSENCE OF RESTRAINT
It cannot be denied, however, that compulsory military service does
interfere with the power of the _individual_ to do as he likes. He is
forced, whether he wants to or not, to undergo certain discipline in
time of peace, and to face uncertain danger in time of war. National
service, then, is a restriction of his liberty, if by liberty is meant
the absence of all restraint. Now this is precisely the sense in which
the term is most frequently used. "Quid est libertas?" (What is
liberty?), asked Cicero, and he replied: "Potestas vivendi ut velis"
(The power of living as you like).[31] "Freedom," said Sir Robert
Filmer, "is the liberty for everyone to do what he lists, to live as he
pleases, and not to be tied by any laws."[32] Even Locke, Filmer's great
opponent, admitted that "the natural liberty of man is to be free from
any superior power on earth." But who is the man who possesses this
unlimited natural liberty to live as he likes, and to act as he pleases,
subject to no superior power on earth? He is either a Robinson Crusoe,
existing alone on a desert island, or he is an anarchist living in the
midst of anarchists, and acknowledging no civil government whatsoever.
In the latter case his career is likely to be as "poor, nasty, brutish,
and short" as that of the primitive savage depicted by Hobbes. For if
one man is free to live as he likes, subject to no superior power, so
are all. Hence in such a society of absolute freemen, human law is
totally abrogated, no life is protected, no property safeguarded.
Everyone, so far as his power avails, does what he pleases, takes what
he covets, slays whom he hates. When his power ceases to avail, that is
when a stronger than he appears upon the scene, he is himself liable to
be despoiled and killed. Such is the state of society in which absolute
liberty obtains. It is a chaos of incessant civil war, where "every man
is enemy to every man." Its unfortunate victims, the possessors of
unrestricted liberty, find that there is
War among them, and despair
Within them, raging without truce or term.[33]
It is from this intolerable condition of perfect freedom that
government saves a man. But it saves him--and in no other way can it
possibly do so--by taking away from both himself and his fellows alike
and in equal measure, part of their insufferable birthright of liberty.
The very essence of government is restriction, compulsion, law. Under
government, then, whatever may be its form, no man is free in the sense
of being exempt from restraint. Natural liberty gives place in organized
society to civil liberty, which is a much more modest and limited thing.
"Civil liberty," says Blackstone, "is no other than natural liberty so
far restrained by human laws as is necessary and expedient for the
general advantage of the public."[34] In the same sense Austin defines
it as "the liberty from legal obligation which is left or granted by a
sovereign government to any of its own subjects."[35] But the most
luminous definition is that of Montesquieu, who says: "La liberté est
le droit de faire tout ce que les lois permettent."[36] Those who would
understand what true civil or political liberty is, and what are its
necessary limitations, should imprint this profound utterance upon their
memories, and employ it as a universal test of sound thinking on the
subject.
"Liberty is the right to do all that the laws allow"--no more, and no
less. Liberty, then, in the sphere of politics, is not the absence of
all restraint whatsoever, but only the absence of all restraint except
that of the law. Thus the freedom of which Britons boast--"English
liberty"--is not a licence to anyone to do as he likes, but is merely
the right of everyone to do what the laws of England permit, and it is a
splendid possession merely because the laws of England are eminent for
justice and equity. "English liberty" is perfectly consistent, as we all
admit, with compulsory registration, vaccination, education, taxation,
insurance, inspection, and countless other legal coercions. From our
cradles to our graves we are beset behind and before by government
regulations; yet we rightly assert that we are free. If then the laws of
England add one more coercion, and proclaim anew the duty of universal
military service, not only will they do a thing consonant with justice
and equity, they will also do a thing which does not in the smallest
degree diminish any individual's civil liberty.[37]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Cicero. _Parad._, v, 1.
[32] Filmer. _Patriarcha_, quoted and criticized by Locke, _On
Government_, book ii, chap. iv.
[33] Shelley. _Ode to Liberty_, Canto 2. Compare the description of
_Huriyeh_ (Liberty) given by Sir Mark Sykes in _The Caliphs' Last
Heritage_. I quote the following from a review in _The Spectator_, of
November 27th, 1915: Sir Mark Sykes saw _Huriyeh_ (Liberty) at work in
the distant provinces of the Empire. "What, O father of Mahmud," he said
to an old Arab acquaintance, "is this _Huriyeh_?" The "father of Mahmud"
replied without hesitation "that there is no law and each one can do all
he likes." Neither was this lawless interpretation of liberty confined
to Moslems. The Greek Christians in the neighbourhood of Hebron were
"armed to the teeth and glad of _Huriyeh_, for they say they can now
raid as well as other men." In Anatolia, a muleteer who had been
discharged from Sir Mark Sykes's service "spent all his time singing
'Liberty--Equality--Fraternity,' the reason being that the Committee at
Smyrna released him from prison, where he was undergoing sentence for
his third murder."
[34] Blackstone. _Commentaries_, i, 140.
[35] Austin. _Jurisprudence_, p. 274.
[36] Montesquieu. _Esprit des Lois_, p. 420.
[37] _Cf._ Philip Snowden, _Socialism and Syndicalism_, p. 175. "When
all submit to law imposed by the common will for the common good, the
law is not slavery, but true liberty."
VI. LIBERTY AS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE
Liberty as absence of restraint is, however, a merely negative thing; it
is a "being let alone." Some great writers, John Stuart Mill for
example, treat it as though it had only this negative character, and as
though to be let alone were necessarily and in itself a good thing. But
others have truly and forcefully shown, first, that to be let alone may
sometimes be a doubtful blessing, and, secondly, that liberty has a
further and positive aspect not less important than the negative. Sir J.
F. Stephen, in his _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_, vigorously
criticizes Mill's negative theory. Matthew Arnold in _Culture and
Anarchy_ (a work which well repays perusal at the present time) pours
delightful but destructive ridicule upon "our prevalent notion that it
is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as
he likes." Thomas Carlyle, in _Past and Present_ and elsewhere,
vehemently expounds a positive ideal of liberty which involves strenuous
work for the good of man and for social advancement. "If liberty be not
that," he concludes, "I for one have small care about liberty." But
first in eminence among the exponents of the positive aspect of liberty
stands Thomas Hill Green, of Oxford. In his works he contends that
liberty is more than absence of restraint, just as beauty is more than
absence of ugliness.[38] He holds that it includes also "a positive
power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or
enjoying." He agrees with Mazzini that complete freedom is "found only
in that satisfying fulfilment of civic duties to which rights, however
precious, are but the vestibule."[39] He looks at freedom, that is to
say, from the communal and not from the individual point of view. Man is
a political animal, and only in an organized society can he attain his
highest development. It is not good for man to be alone; each individual
needs the companionship and co-operation of his fellows; no one in
solitude can attain even to self-realization. Hence, government is more
than a restraining power; it is also an organizing power. It not only
prevents its subjects from injuring one another; it places them where
they can most effectively aid one another and work together for the
common weal. It frees their faculties from the impotence of isolation,
and opens up to them the unbounded possibilities of corporate activity.
Hence, liberty on its positive side becomes merged in national service,
in the broad sense of the fulfilment of the duties of citizenship. Thus
he is an enemy of freedom who holds himself aloof from his fellows and
declines to bear his share in the general burden. If, then, the State
calls upon all its subjects to join together in undertaking the supreme
task of national defence, every true lover of liberty must respond "Here
am I."
FOOTNOTES:
[38] Green, _Principles of Political Obligation_, p. 110-5.
[39] _Cf._ MacCunn, _Six Radical Thinkers_, p. 259.
III
THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE
[Reprinted from the _Morning Post_ of December 28th, 1915.]
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 pass 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 constitution during the
long period of peace that followed the Battles of Trafalgar and
Waterloo, and it had its _raison d'être_ in the circumstances of the
time. Our Navy had secured the undisputed command of the sea. Our shores
and the shores 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, circumstances 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
assure 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 ships. 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 masses 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
advertisement 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 assigned 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.
Canvassers 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 passports to men of military age; the great shipping 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