the amazing spectacle of Trade Unionists meeting in
congress to condemn "conscription" and at the same time sanctioning the
most extreme measures of illegal persecution to drive non-Unionists into
the ranks of their own organizations. It is a monstrous and intolerable
perversion of all sound political principles. The whole sorry business
is a flagrant example of the subtle way in which a democracy can be
cajoled, corrupted, and depraved.

I elaborated this point in a letter to the _Observer_ which the Editor
kindly allows me to reprint here. It will be found in the issue of
January 17th, 1915:

One of the most curious phenomena of present-day politics is the
opposition offered by collectivists to conscription--under which
term they persistently and disingenuously include both the
compulsory service of the German army and the very different
universal military training of the Swiss citizen.

Even Mr. Herbert Spencer and the extreme individualists of his
school admitted that national defence is a proper function of the
State, and that a government may rightly use compulsory powers to
safeguard the community from attack.

But Mr. Arnold Bennett and the semi-socialists of the _Daily
Chronicle_ and the _Daily News_--although they are filled with
horror and indignation if it is suggested that an artisan should be
allowed to choose whether or not he will enjoy the advantages of
the Insurance Act; or that a collier, if he wishes to do so, should
be permitted to work for more than eight hours a day; or that a
labourer should be exempted from persecution as a blackleg if he
prefers to remain outside the fold of a trade union--are fired
with a long-dormant zeal for individual liberty, if it is urged
that a young man's citizenship is incomplete until he has been
called and prepared to defend his home and his country in case of
need.

Their collectivism is, in fact, a peculiarly perverted or inverted
type of individualism. It insists on the right of the individual,
if unemployed, to come to the State for work; if in poverty, to
come to the State for relief; if ignorant, to come to the State for
education: but it strenuously resists the exercise by the State of
its reciprocal claim on the service of the individual. It is
engrossed by the contemplation of the rights of the individual and