e 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

Is there any shred or remnant of this deserted and discredited voluntary
principle that is worth saving? There is not. It is the last
disreputable relic of the extreme individualism of the Manchester School
of the early nineteenth century, which taught a political theory that
has been abandoned by all serious thinkers. Everyone now admits that it
is the function of the State to secure as far as it can the conditions
of the good life to its citizens. It is the logical and inevitable
corollary that it is the duty of every citizen to support and safeguard
the State. It has long been one of the gravest weaknesses of our modern
democracy that, while it has insisted vehemently upon its claims against
the State--claims to education, employment, office, insurance, pension,
and so on--it has remained comparatively oblivious to its
responsibilities. Its so-called political leaders, who too often are but
self-seeking flatterers fawning for its favour, have persistently
encouraged it to concentrate its efforts upon getting without giving. It
has been taught that it is proper to use political power in pursuit of
selfish aims and to employ all manner of compulsion therein; but in the
matter of national service it has received soothing lessons on the
surpassing glories of the voluntary principle. It is the State which is
to be coerced by threats of passive resistance or general strikes; but
if the State attempts coercion in the exercise of its functions it is
met by the passionate proclamation of the rights of personal freedom.
Similarly, we have