rrs TM EDITOR or THE SPECTATOR.")
Ste,—Your thoughtful article in year issue of September 15th dealing with the position of conscientious objectors was of great value. The legislation enacted in the early days of the war was crude and adopted with great economy of thought. Its working has been a scandal, and the entire subject needs carefully thinking out.
May I suggest that logically conscientious objectors are, according to their own theories, outlaws, and should be treated as such P They insist that " force is no remedy," and would not resort to force in the defence of their country. They place their dependence on moral and spiritual influences. Let them then depend entirely upon those influences. The essential difference between law and mere advice is this, that law has behind it the sanction of force to punish disobedience. Advice says: "You ought to do this "; "it would be better to do that." Law says : "Tim must." These .good people who are • for ever disparaging "force" as though it were essentially an-Christian should be assisted to understand their own thesis, that they have placed themselves in the position of "outlaws." Nothing would do this more effectually than the leaving of them to the protection of those moral and spirituel influences upon which they place such exclusive dependence when national interests are concerned. For example (1) They are not entitled logically to the protection of the law either as to their primers or their property. They ought riot to be permitted to sue in ri Court. of Justice, or to enjoy the protection of the pollee. In case of mob violence, or the more stealthy measures of the housebreaker or the forger, they should be left to depend upon moral and spiritual influences only for their safety. Willing as they are, and even urging that the nation's safety should be left to the protection of these influences, they could not logically or reasonably object to be left to these influences for the protection of their own homes and persons.
(2) Their objection to military service being understood to be on grounds of religion and not economics, there is no reason why, if exempted, from that military service to which others are subjected, that should carry with it exemption from the hard- ships of a soldier's life. Indeed, it is unfair that they should be SO exempted. Whatever the position they occupy industrially, their remuneration should be the mere soldier's pay and allow- ances, with some further consideration for rations and shelter and clothing, calculated upon something like the scale of comfort the soldier on active service enjoys. The difference between this and the actual wages .should he paid aver to the National Health
Ineuranee or some similar fund. Even then the premium upon being a conscientious objector would remain very great, in the exemption from peril of life and limb, from trench and bayonet. (3) Further, they are not entitled logically to the public services for lighting, travel, Sc., which come to the public only by the operation of law; certainly not upon the terms on which they are enjoyed by the law-abiding community. The severe individualism of the conscientious objector should be carried through, and he should make such terms for himself as he can with Gas Companies, Education Committees, Highway Boards, Water Companies, Tramway Companies, and the like.
(4.) In addition to the foregoing, it will he seen that he who will not acknowledge the authority of the law and take his share in rendering it effective should have no part in making or executing the laws. In other words, he should, as the price of his exemption from military service, be disfranchised municipally and nationally, and be excluded also from service in municipal or national employments.
Stripped of the foregoing privileges, which all come to him through the operation of the " force " that he labours to discredit, he would still be at a great economic advantage over his fellow- citizen who shoulders his rifle and spends his days and nights amidst the mud of Flanders and the ravages of German gas and guns. He could scarcely pose as a martyr. Any hardehip that mobs might inflict upon him would enable him to test the value of the moral and spiritual influences upon which he insists that his country should depend when German armies would set upon it to despoil it. After an experience such as, notwithstanding police protection, some of his countrymen passed through following upon the loss of the `Lusitania,' the conscientious objector would be able better to understand and appreciate the meaning and consequences of his line of action. The educational influence of all this would be very great, and its justice I think unimpeachable. It would be the snore effective if every conscientious objector's home should be required to bear some conspicuous mark showing that it was exempted from the protection of the law, and if upon his person some badge of outlawry were required to be exhibited. No conscientious objector in such circumstances could regard himself as ill-used by the law of the land. He would no obviously be only receiving the measure he would mete to his nation. He might in.time begin to think he was ill-using his country, betraying his countrymen, and despising his birthright as an Englishman and a Christian. At least a month's notice should be given after the enactment of such measures before actually putting them in force, so that the conscientious objector might have the opportunity of register- ing himself as such; after the lapse of that period the conditions of outlawry to operate without further discussion. Is not all this simply logical deduction from the conscientious objector's
own postulates? I confess it seems so to H.
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