justify
civil conscription; but when we come to think of the nation--what might
not be done by a State with a national labor army under its control?
Public works might be undertaken at a cost greatly below that which
would otherwise be incurred, and the estimates which now paralyze the
State, when it considers this really needed service or that, would
assume a different appearance, as it would be embracing in one
enterprise technical education and the accomplishment of beneficial
works. With such an army under skilled control the big cities could
have playgrounds for the children of the cities; public gardens, baths,
gymnasiums, recreation rooms, hospitals, and sanatoriums might be built;
waste land reclaimed and afforested, and the roadsides might be planted
with fruit trees. National schools, picture-galleries, public halls,
libraries, and a thousand enterprises which now hang fire because at
present labor for public service is the most expensive labor, all could
be undertaken. If the State becomes very poor, as indeed it is certain
to be, it may be forced into some such method of fulfilling its
functions. Are we, with enormous burdens of debt, to hang up every
useful public work because of the expense, and spend our lives in paying
State debts while the body for whom we work is unable, on account of the
expense, to do anything for us in return? If the State is to continue
its functions we shall have to commandeer people for its service in
times of peace as is done in times of war. There is hardly an argument
which could be used to defend military conscription which could not be
equaled with as powerful an argument for civil conscription. I am not
at all sure that if the State in Ireland decided to utilize two years of
every young man's life for State purposes that we could not disband
most of our expensive constabulary and make certain squads of our civil
recruits responsible for the keeping of public law and order, leaving
only the officers as permanent professionals, for of course there must
be expert control of the conscripts. The postal service might also be
carried on largely by conscripted civilians.

This may appear a fantastic programme, but I would like to see it
argued out. It would create a real brotherhood in work, just as the army
creates in its own way a brotherhood between men in the same regiments.
The nation adopting civil conscription could clean itself up in a
couple of generations, so that in res