Conscription and democracy

From ‘The will of the majority’, The Spectator, 18 September 1915: The minority may declare, as have some of the trade union leaders, that they are the people—though in reality they are only a twentieth part of the community—and have a right to say what shall and what shall not be done in this country. In the last resort they will find that nineteen-twentieths are stronger than one-twentieth. This country is a crowned democratic republic in which ‘the people’ means ‘the people’, and not a junta of Jacobins… If the State decides that it must have compulsory military service, just as it has decided that it must take some 35 per cent of the incomes of the rich, there can be no tolerance of resistance to either decree. The man who conscientiously objects to high direct taxation will have to pay his taxes as promptly and as fully as the man who holds that direct taxation is the best form of raising money for the State. In the same way, the opponent of universal military service must loyally acquiesce in the decision of the country.