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Title: Compulsory Service And Liberty
Author: Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw [
More Titles by Hearnshaw]
[Reprinted, with the addition of References,
from the Morning Post of September 28th, 1915.]
I. THE PLEA OF FREEDOM
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.
II. THE TERM "LIBERTY"
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Seeley. Introduction to Political Science, pp. 103-4.
[26] Arnold. Culture and Anarchy, chap. ii.
[27] Ritchie. Natural Rights, p. 135.
[28] Seeley: op. cit., p. 103.
III. LIBERTY AS FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN CONTROL
"A free nation," says Sir William Temple, "is that which has never been conquered, or thereby entered into any condition of subjection."[29] In this sense of freedom from foreign domination liberty is the immemorial boast of Britons. They never have been, or will be, slaves. They are, and they are determined to remain--so they proudly sing--free as the waves that wash their shores, free as the winds that sweep their hills. They are resolved that no alien tyrant shall plant his foot upon their necks. As in the Middle Ages they repudiated the claim of German Emperors and Ultramontane Popes to exercise political sovereignty over them; as in more modern times they resisted conquest by the Spaniard Philip and the Corsican Napoleon; even so would they resist to the extreme limit of endurance any attempt to-day to reduce them to servitude. The proposition that freedom in this sense of national independence is consistent with compulsory military service needs no demonstration at all. So far from there being any incompatibility between the two, it is probable that only by means of a manhood universally trained to the use of arms can the freedom of Britain and the integrity of the Empire be ultimately maintained. We shall almost certainly have to choose, not between national service and liberty, but between national service and destruction.
FOOTNOTE:
[29] Temple. Works ii, p. 87.
IV. LIBERTY AS SYNONYMOUS WITH RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
In a second and somewhat looser sense "Liberty is regarded as the equivalent of Parliamentary government."[30] We speak of one type of Constitution as "free" and of another type as "unfree." The so-called "free" type of government is that in which political power rests in the hands of the Democracy, whereas in "unfree" States the people are in subjection to a ruling person or class. From the point of view of the individual subject this distinction has no meaning at all. For the laws passed by a Democratic Parliament are coercive and compulsory in precisely the same manner and degree as are the laws of a despotic monarchy or a close oligarchy. There is, indeed, a "tyranny of the majority" which can be quite as oppressive to the individual as the tyranny of the one or the few, and much less easy to evade. From the point of view of the enfranchised community, however, the term "free" has a meaning, and its use can be defended. For if the electorate be regarded as a unit, akin to an organism, government becomes self-government, and any obligations which the community places upon itself by means of laws can be looked upon as self-limitations, imposed by free-will and capable of removal at any moment by the unfettered exercise of the power which imposed them. From this communal point of view, however, it is evident that national service involves no diminution of liberty. The community becomes not one whit less free because it decides to train itself in the use of arms and to mobilize all its resources for military purposes. It retains its capacity to demobilize any time it likes, to lay aside its arms, to pension off its drill sergeants, and to return to the paths of pacificism whenever it seems safe to do so.
FOOTNOTE:
[30] Seeley: op. cit., p. 114.
V. LIBERTY AS ABSENCE OF RESTRAINT
It cannot be denied, however, that compulsory military service does interfere with the power of the individual to do as he likes. He is forced, whether he wants to or not, to undergo certain discipline in time of peace, and to face uncertain danger in time of war. National service, then, is a restriction of his liberty, if by liberty is meant the absence of all restraint. Now this is precisely the sense in which the term is most frequently used. "Quid est libertas?" (What is liberty?), asked Cicero, and he replied: "Potestas vivendi ut velis" (The power of living as you like).[31] "Freedom," said Sir Robert Filmer, "is the liberty for everyone to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws."[32] Even Locke, Filmer's great opponent, admitted that "the natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth." But who is the man who possesses this unlimited natural liberty to live as he likes, and to act as he pleases, subject to no superior power on earth? He is either a Robinson Crusoe, existing alone on a desert island, or he is an anarchist living in the midst of anarchists, and acknowledging no civil government whatsoever. In the latter case his career is likely to be as "poor, nasty, brutish, and short" as that of the primitive savage depicted by Hobbes. For if one man is free to live as he likes, subject to no superior power, so are all. Hence in such a society of absolute freemen, human law is totally abrogated, no life is protected, no property safeguarded. Everyone, so far as his power avails, does what he pleases, takes what he covets, slays whom he hates. When his power ceases to avail, that is when a stronger than he appears upon the scene, he is himself liable to be despoiled and killed. Such is the state of society in which absolute liberty obtains. It is a chaos of incessant civil war, where "every man is enemy to every man." Its unfortunate victims, the possessors of unrestricted liberty, find that there is
War among them, and despair
Within them, raging without truce or term.[33]
It is from this intolerable condition of perfect freedom that government saves a man. But it saves him--and in no other way can it possibly do so--by taking away from both himself and his fellows alike and in equal measure, part of their insufferable birthright of liberty. The very essence of government is restriction, compulsion, law. Under government, then, whatever may be its form, no man is free in the sense of being exempt from restraint. Natural liberty gives place in organized society to civil liberty, which is a much more modest and limited thing. "Civil liberty," says Blackstone, "is no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the public."[34] In the same sense Austin defines it as "the liberty from legal obligation which is left or granted by a sovereign government to any of its own subjects."[35] But the most luminous definition is that of Montesquieu, who says: "La liberté est le droit de faire tout ce que les lois permettent."[36] Those who would understand what true civil or political liberty is, and what are its necessary limitations, should imprint this profound utterance upon their memories, and employ it as a universal test of sound thinking on the subject.
"Liberty is the right to do all that the laws allow"--no more, and no less. Liberty, then, in the sphere of politics, is not the absence of all restraint whatsoever, but only the absence of all restraint except that of the law. Thus the freedom of which Britons boast--"English liberty"--is not a licence to anyone to do as he likes, but is merely the right of everyone to do what the laws of England permit, and it is a splendid possession merely because the laws of England are eminent for justice and equity. "English liberty" is perfectly consistent, as we all admit, with compulsory registration, vaccination, education, taxation, insurance, inspection, and countless other legal coercions. From our cradles to our graves we are beset behind and before by government regulations; yet we rightly assert that we are free. If then the laws of England add one more coercion, and proclaim anew the duty of universal military service, not only will they do a thing consonant with justice and equity, they will also do a thing which does not in the smallest degree diminish any individual's civil liberty.[37]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Cicero. Parad., v, 1.
[32] Filmer. Patriarcha, quoted and criticized by Locke, On Government, book ii, chap. iv.
[33] Shelley. Ode to Liberty, Canto 2. Compare the description of Huriyeh (Liberty) given by Sir Mark Sykes in The Caliphs' Last Heritage. I quote the following from a review in The Spectator, of November 27th, 1915: Sir Mark Sykes saw Huriyeh (Liberty) at work in the distant provinces of the Empire. "What, O father of Mahmud," he said to an old Arab acquaintance, "is this Huriyeh?" The "father of Mahmud" replied without hesitation "that there is no law and each one can do all he likes." Neither was this lawless interpretation of liberty confined to Moslems. The Greek Christians in the neighbourhood of Hebron were "armed to the teeth and glad of Huriyeh, for they say they can now raid as well as other men." In Anatolia, a muleteer who had been discharged from Sir Mark Sykes's service "spent all his time singing 'Liberty--Equality--Fraternity,' the reason being that the Committee at Smyrna released him from prison, where he was undergoing sentence for his third murder."
[34] Blackstone. Commentaries, i, 140.
[35] Austin. Jurisprudence, p. 274.
[36] Montesquieu. Esprit des Lois, p. 420.
[37] Cf. Philip Snowden, Socialism and Syndicalism, p. 175. "When all submit to law imposed by the common will for the common good, the law is not slavery, but true liberty."
VI. LIBERTY AS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE
Liberty as absence of restraint is, however, a merely negative thing; it is a "being let alone." Some great writers, John Stuart Mill for example, treat it as though it had only this negative character, and as though to be let alone were necessarily and in itself a good thing. But others have truly and forcefully shown, first, that to be let alone may sometimes be a doubtful blessing, and, secondly, that liberty has a further and positive aspect not less important than the negative. Sir J. F. Stephen, in his Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, vigorously criticizes Mill's negative theory. Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (a work which well repays perusal at the present time) pours delightful but destructive ridicule upon "our prevalent notion that it is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes." Thomas Carlyle, in Past and Present and elsewhere, vehemently expounds a positive ideal of liberty which involves strenuous work for the good of man and for social advancement. "If liberty be not that," he concludes, "I for one have small care about liberty." But first in eminence among the exponents of the positive aspect of liberty stands Thomas Hill Green, of Oxford. In his works he contends that liberty is more than absence of restraint, just as beauty is more than absence of ugliness.[38] He holds that it includes also "a positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying." He agrees with Mazzini that complete freedom is "found only in that satisfying fulfilment of civic duties to which rights, however precious, are but the vestibule."[39] He looks at freedom, that is to say, from the communal and not from the individual point of view. Man is a political animal, and only in an organized society can he attain his highest development. It is not good for man to be alone; each individual needs the companionship and co-operation of his fellows; no one in solitude can attain even to self-realization. Hence, government is more than a restraining power; it is also an organizing power. It not only prevents its subjects from injuring one another; it places them where they can most effectively aid one another and work together for the common weal. It frees their faculties from the impotence of isolation, and opens up to them the unbounded possibilities of corporate activity. Hence, liberty on its positive side becomes merged in national service, in the broad sense of the fulfilment of the duties of citizenship. Thus he is an enemy of freedom who holds himself aloof from his fellows and declines to bear his share in the general burden. If, then, the State calls upon all its subjects to join together in undertaking the supreme task of national defence, every true lover of liberty must respond "Here am I."
FOOTNOTES:
[38] Green, Principles of Political Obligation, p. 110-5.
[39] Cf. MacCunn, Six Radical Thinkers, p. 259.
[The end]
Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw's essay: Compulsory Service And Liberty
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