Freedom In Service - F. J. C. Hearnshaw

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the much-abused name of Liberty, has shifted a universal national duty upon the shoulders of the patriotic few. But it has never been revoked or repudiated.

      It is not National Service, but the Voluntary System, that is un-English and unhistoric. The Territorial Army dates from 1908; the Volunteers from 1859; the Regular Army itself only from 1645. But for a millennium before the oldest of them the ancient defence of England was the Nation in Arms. When will it be so again?

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      [Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the Morning Post of September 28th, 1915.]

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      The opponents of national service pursue two lines of argument, the one historical, the other theoretical. Along the line of history they try to show that compulsory military duty is alien from the English Constitution, and that the voluntary system is the good old system by means of which Great Britain has maintained her independence, achieved her glories, and founded her Empire. Along the line of political theory they contend that the demand for national service is contrary to the spirit of liberty, that freedom is an essential characteristic of the English genius, that Britons may be persuaded but not coerced, and so on.

      In the preceding study I have shown the utter baselessness of the historical argument, pointed out that compulsory service was the very foundation of the Anglo-Saxon system of defence, and concluded that whereas "the Territorial Army dates from 1908, the Volunteers from 1859, the Regular Army itself only from 1645, for a millennium before the oldest of them the ancient defence of England was the Nation in Arms." I now turn to the theoretical argument, and propose to consider what is meant by the term "liberty," and ask whether the compulsion involved in national service is incompatible with liberty properly understood.

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      There can be no doubt that in this country, as in America, the term "liberty" enjoys much popularity. Sir John Seeley has remarked that just as "its unlimited generality" makes it "delightful to poets," so its harmonious sound is so grateful to the ears of the public at large that "if a political speech did not frequently mention liberty," no one would "know what to make of it or where to applaud."[25] Matthew Arnold goes so far as to speak of "our worship of freedom," and to depict liberty as the object of a fanatical semi-religious adoration.[26] But as a rule where an Englishman adores he does not define, and if one asks the common devotee of liberty what he understands by the abstraction before which he prostrates himself, one generally requires but a small portion of the dialectic subtlety of Socrates to involve him in a hopeless tangle of contradictions. He can no more define liberty than he can locate his soul. Mr. D. G. Ritchie truly says: "Many crimes have been done, and a still greater amount of nonsense talked in the name of liberty."[27] Seeley, with as much justice as pungency, asserts that some writers "teach us to call by the name of liberty whatever in politics we want," and so lead us to disguise our selfishness and cowardice in the stolen garb of moral principle.[28] At any rate, there is urgent need that before we either support or oppose any practical political measure in the name of liberty, we should clear our minds of confusion, and should reach an understanding of what precisely we mean by this vast and vague expression. It will be found, I think, upon examination, that the term "liberty," as employed in the sphere of politics, has four distinct connotations. I hope to show that in no one of these four senses is liberty incompatible with the compulsory element implicit in the principle of national service.

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