TO A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR : AN OPEN LETTER.

[To TUE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1

Sra,—Here is an open letter to a conscientious objector.—I am,

DEAR L—,—Ever since the war began I have been wondering why you have not taken up some form of military or naval duty. Your parents are well-to-do, you are only twenty-three, and have no ties of family or work to bind you. I am now told that you have a conscientious objection to fighting, and, further, that you refuse on grounds of conscience to undertake even non-combatant work connected with the war. As I, too, am a conscientious objector, it may help us both if we tell each other frankly how we feel.

I am told that you " disapprove of war." Let me say at once, and quite frankly, that I sincerely agree with you. There are many who are attracted by the excitement and glamour of war; they

feel that war is glorious, and that it offers adventure as a relief to the dull monotony of " the trivial round, the common task." Perhaps they look upon war as a cleansing of society from the social

vices of peace. But I, like you, ant not one of these. To me, as to you, war is horrible. I, like you, find adventure and nobility in the

everyday life of peace. To my mind, war brutalizes both those who take part in it and those who remain to look on at home. So far, we are honestly agreed. Knowing me as you do, you are au-are that in the first week of war both my brothers joined the Army, that one of them lost his life many months ago, and that the other has been at the front for more than a year. You know, too, why I have stayed at home so long. My father died -when I was twenty, and during the eight years that have since gone by the maintenance of his home, my home, has largely fallen upon me. You know well that since August; 1914, as before, I have been working hard in order to keep our home together, for there is nobody else to support my mother and sister.

During all these weary months I, like you, have been racked by conscience. My duty to stay at home seemed so clear. Yet just

because I did not want to go to the war. I could not help feeling

suspicious of the duty that kept me at 'home. When inclination and duty lead in the same direction, one has to scrutinize the duty. I am perfectly candid. I do not want to be a soldier. Military life has little attraction for me, and I do not crave for excitement, or even for emancipation from the tics of everyday life. And I know full well that when I go, suffering, and perhaps want, must be

inflicted upon those I leave behind. You, at least, are free from this. If your conscience sent you forth, you would not be troubled

by the thought that your absence would leave your home in difficul- ties. You are nobody's financial support, and happy is the man who can go to war with that knowledge to buoy him up. Both you and I arc men of education. Both of us have enjoyed the great benefits of refined surroundings all our lives. As a result we are more consciously actuated by conscience than many others, though perhaps we do not admit it. There are many people whoso consciences are not so highly polished as yours and mine. They follow duty blindly. They go to war, if not because they like it, because simple duty calls. But for better or for worse, you and I look where we are going; wo reason before we go and think while we are going. Both of us think that war is wrong, and neither of us is attracted by war or military life. Yet your conscience keeps you at home while mine sends me forth. I should have become a soldier many months ago if I, like you, had been free from d'omestio cares.

All last year I was racked by conscience. Then came Lord Derby's scheme, which provided machinery for dealing with-individual cases.

Up till then enlistment meant immediate service, and for that I

felt that the time had not yet come. But in November I gladly attested, and since then I have been far happier than at any time during the war. My conscience was at rest. I laid my circumstances before the local tribunal, and could honestly feel that responsibility for deciding no longer rested upon me. Have I told you that the

local tribunal unanimously decided that, bachelor though I am, I should be placed in the corresponding married group ? 'Let me add a secret. One of the members of the tribunal told me afterwards that ho thought mine was a case for exemption. A few minutes of temptation followed, but conscience decided for me.

What a strange thing conscience is. It tells you, free as you arc, to stay at home and to continuo to live in physical comfort.

Conscience sends me forth, and thus compels me to leave my women- folk with scanty provision and my savings. Do you remember that recruiting poster which showed a child sitting upon his father's knee ? Under it were printed the simple words : Daddy, what

did you do in the Great War ? " Has that poster ever worried you ? I confess that to me it has been a constant nightmare.

If you and I arc alive in the new world that will come with peace,

you and I will be enjoying the fruits of the sacrifices of others. War is wrong; this war may have been unnecessary; but we are in the war, and the peace that will come must be the work of those

who have taken their share. How can we face that peace and that world with a clear conscience if we have refused to give what it is in our power to offer ? Perhaps I am a coward not to bravo the world after peace. Perhaps you are right in adhering to your view, come what may. But at least I am happy in this, that

posterity can never say that I refused when the last call came.

We both object to war. Wo are both conscientious. - We both want to live. But you are a conscientious objector within the meaning of the Act, and I have a conscientious objection to letting others face death for me. If we are both alive when the war is over, let us meet to talk this out. But of this I ant confident. Whoever may have been right, I shall be the happier.4-1 and; Y9Pro,