The politicians of Torydom persist in defying | the wishes of the Director-General of Recruiting. | Not satisfied with having appropriated for their | own miserable party political purposes the | win-the-war slogan of the Recruiting Campaign, they | now treat with contempt Mr Mackinnon's request to | refrain from prejudicing the voluntary system by | resolutions and criticism declaratory of its | collapse.
| We are satisfied this policy is pursued
| because it is clear that unless Labor can be kept
| divided upon the question of enlistment
|
Therefore the question of conscription is | boomed and boosted so that voluntarism may be | prejudiced to the point of exhaustion, and so | that a public atmosphere may exist hostile to the | consolidating efforts now successfully going on | within the movement of Labor.
|And what are the facts in regard to Australia | and the war? It is now known beyond the shadow | of a doubt that a lying story has been a | continuous feature of the Hughes-Pearce | announcements in respect to the enlistment of men | for service oversea.
|Determined to put an end to the possibility of | voluntary enlistment satisfying the demands for | reinforcing Five Divisions, Hughes-Pearce | refused, during the conscription campaign of | 1916, to permit publication of the actual number | of men volunteering each month. They filled the | press with declarations that voluntarism had | failed, and painted horrible pictures of men | dying in the trenches for want of support.
|Hughes said (September 1, 1916),
|
That definite proclamation made conscription | an issue. And unless conscription was made a | vital principle of public controversy, Labor | could not have been divided, its authority in the | Government of the Commonwealth would not have | come temporarily to an end; the advent of Toryism | to power would not have occurred.
| And to-day we know that the alleged statement
| of fact
Instead of enlisting the enormous numbers
| demanded by Hughes in his September speech, the
| total since recruited has been less than 5,000
| monthly. And instead of reinforcements having
| petered out at the end of January, the facts as
| published on August 1, 1917
|
It is however, announced that the sick and | wounded number 70,400. Of these 24,000 have | returned to Australia. That leaves a balance of | 46,000 to be deducted from the 247,000 abroad. | The computation leaves more than 100,000 men now | oversea with which to relieve and reinforce the | Five Divisions, and Hughes now declares Five | Divisions represents all the Imperial Government | requests us to maintain at full strength.
|It is therefore clear that, without regard to | the men in camp in Australia, voluntarism has not | failed to furnish enough men to keep Five | Divisions at full strength, and to afford proper | relief frequently.
| But the Hughes-Pearce conspiracy, which last
| year said voluntarism had failed
Upon what basis do they fix 7,000 men monthly | as the second and amended test of the capacity of | voluntarism? All the world now knows their | computation of ten months ago was grossly | extravagant and unwarranted.
|Hughes-Pearce say the fault was due to the | miscalculation of the British War Office. Yet | they denounced as "enemies of the nation", men | who refused to accept estimates which on their | face bore the imprint of inaccuracy.
| Upon what foundation is it that 7,000 men
| monthly are required as reinforcements for Five
| Divisions? If Australia is doing all that can be
| expected of her by maintaining Five
| Divisions
The figures contained in this article show | that more than 100,000 Australians were abroad on | June 1, 1917, exclusive of the 100,000 in the | Five Divisions in France, those in hospital, and | the dead, missing, and prisoners.
|Pearce said (April 3) that casualties during | the last six months averaged 2,000 per month.
|Hughes said (June 29) that enlistments during | the same period averaged 4,750 per month.
| That enlistment was sufficient to fill up the
| blanks and leave a surplus of 16,500
The figures suggest that reinforcements are | not calculated upon the necessities of Five | Divisions. Hughes-Pearce sought to discard | voluntarism last year by the publication of | untrue statements. They now say a mistake was | made.
| But it was their demand for more men than were
| legitimately required, and the country could
| furnish, which resulted in the political wreckage
| of the Labor Ministry. At the time they were
| saying Voluntarism had failed. It had produced
|
That was five times in excess of the average | monthly casualties the army of Australia had | sustained.
|Involved in the man-problem is now a greatly | accentuated economic trouble. Ships and food are | a supreme urgency. They but symptomise the | general situation. The whole question of our | military activity on behalf of the Allies has to | be considered in the light of the new situation | which has arisen. The strength of the Australian | Army cannot be, and must not be, measured by the | whirling platform oratory of amazingly devious | politicians; it must be determined by the | national strength, the national economic status, | and the general circumstances of the country.
| To continue sending men away
That is why we want to know why Hughes-Pearce | now fix on 7,000 men a month as the irreducible | minimum for reinforcements. If calculations are | to be based on experience of the war, then 7,000 | men will do more than replenish wastage. The men | who in June, 1917, confess they misled the public | in September-October, 1916 cannot complain if | their new declarations are carefully scanned.
|Both voluntarism and conscription have their | limitations; neither can go on for ever. New | Zealand gives conclusive proof that sooner or | later all things come to an end. And now that | New Zealand has enlisted all the married men who | volunteered, and called up practically all the | single men eligible for service, it is found that | something has to happen.
| Sir Joseph Ward
|
That utterance was guarded and non-committal. | But Dr Newman was more definite. He is reported | thus:
|
|
His observations in
| England convinced him that their duty was now to
| concentrate on food production.
We are, therefore, faced with the fact that | conscription can be said to have broken down in | the Dominion. It is significant that what | certain compulsion advocates say of voluntarism | in the Commonwealth, Sir Joseph Ward hints at in | respect to conscription in New Zealand.
|It is time the press and public were given a | clearer indication of where they stand. Hughes- | Hughes-Pearce have been convicted of double-dealing | and monstrous deception. To their false case of | last year Labor owes the cleavage in its ranks. | That case has been exposed for the lying | concoction which it was. But the damage still | remains unrepaired.
|And for ourselves we refuse to accept their | present utterances as being more reliable than | those they confess to have been fraudulent.
|< August 3, 1917>