From ‘A War Census’, The Spectator, 5 June 1915:
It is quite possible that a war census may prove a substitute for compulsion, or, rather, render compulsion unnecessary. When we come to ask the question: “What are you doing for your country ?” the shame of saying “Nothing” will bring home to many men the need for proving their manhood. It will awaken thousands who are now asleep. It will for the first time make many people who now honestly believe the country is getting millions of men, in fact all that are required, and that no special effort is needed, recognize how great has been their mistake and how urgent is the need. When we know district by district that there are so many thousand men of military age dwelling therein who are not engaged in any work which is needful to sustain the nation or will help to shorten the war, the pressure of public opinion will unquestionably be very great. It will have a clear and direct object to work upon where it can now only work indirectly and vaguely. Again, it is bound to have a great effect in enabling us to apply the full force of labour upon the provision of munitions of war. If in some particular town we find that there are men by the thousand engaged in making, let us say, lace curtains or fancy hosiery, many of whom could easily be trained to make high-explosive shells, we shall not be long in releasing them from manufacturing the ornaments of life and in setting them to supply the necessaries of war.
There is another way in which the war census might possibly prove an efficient substitute for compulsion. After it has been taken, every one will recognize that should the need for compulsion arise, and should our rulers have to say, as Lincoln said in effect to the American people : The blood and the treasure already expended to save the country must not have been expended in vain. We will not tolerate the prospect of national ruin when we can prevent it by compulsion ‘—the Government will not have to spend months in erecting machinery for compulsion, but can at once adopt it. This fact, coupled as it will be with the knowledge that if compulsion comes the terms of service will be very different from those of voluntary enlistment—that is, far less favourable to the compelled men—should act as a tremendous premium on volunteering. It is often said that you cannot work a voluntary system side by side with a compulsory system. That is a mistake. Lincoln deliberately and consciously worked the two together. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the Draft, or American form of conscription, produced in itself and directly very small results. Where its effect was seen was in the stimulus given to voluntary recruiting. There the terms of service were always more favourable than those decreed by the Act of Congress. In the same way, the knowledge that com- pulsion can be resorted to, and may be resorted to, will with us send thousands of young men to join the colours. Only the other day the present writer was asking a young soldier of his acquaintance who had previously refused to join what had made him change his mind. The answer was honest, if naively unheroic : “I’m quite sure that compulsion is coming, and I wanted to join voluntarily and not be compelled; so I went.”
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