The establishment of a general military conscription is like the work of a man who props a crumbling house. The walls have settled, sloping inward—he braces them; the ceiling begins to hang down—he supports that; and when the boards between give way, other braces are supplied. At last it reaches the point when, although the braces hold the house together, they actually make it uninhabitable.
The same may be said of the general conscription system. The general military conscription nullifies all those advantages of social life which it is expected to protect.
The advantages of social life are those guarantees which it offers for the protection of property and labor, as well as coöperation for the purposes of mutual advantage; the general military conscription destroys all this.
The taxes collected from the people for purposes of war absorb the greater part of the productions of their labor, which the army ought to protect.
When men are taken from the ordinary avocations of daily life, labor is practically destroyed. Where war is ever threatening to break forth, it does not seem worth while to improve social conditions.
If a man had formerly been told that unless he submitted to the civil authority he would run the risk of being assaulted by wicked men, that he would be in danger from domestic as well as from foreign foes, against whom he would be forced to defend himself, that he might be murdered, and therefore he would find it for his advantage to suffer certain privations if by that means he succeeded in escaping all these perils, he might have believed this, especially as the sacrifices required by the State promised him the hope of a peaceful existence within the well-established community in whose name he had made them. But now, when these sacrifices are not only multiplied, but the promised advantages are not realized, it is quite natural for men to think that their subjection to authority is utterly useless.
But the fatal significance of the general conscription, as the manifestation of that contradiction which dwells in the social life-conception, lies not in this. Wherever military conscription exists, every citizen who becomes a soldier likewise becomes a supporter of the State system, and a participant in whatsoever the State may do, at the same time that he does not acknowledge its validity; and this may be called its chief manifestation.
Governments declare that armies are principally required for external defense; but this is untrue. They are, in the first place, needed to overawe their own subjects, and every man who yields to military conscription becomes an involuntary participator in all the oppressive acts of government toward its subjects. It is necessary to remember what goes on in every State in the name of order and the welfare of the community, all the while enforced by military authority, to be convinced that every man who fulfils military duty becomes a participant in acts of the State of which he cannot approve. Every dynastic and political feud, all the executions resulting from such feuds, the crushing of rebellions, the use of the military in dispersing mobs, in putting down strikes, all extortionate taxation, the injustice of land ownership and the limitations of freedom of labor,—all this is done, if not directly by the troops, then by the police supported by the troops. He who performs his military duty becomes a participant in all these acts, about which he often feels more than dubious, and which are in most cases directly opposed to his conscience. Men do not wish to leave the land which they have tilled for generations; they do not wish to disperse on the bidding of the government; they do not wish to pay the taxes which are extorted from them; neither do they willingly submit to laws which they have not helped to make; they do not wish to give up their nationality. And I, if I am performing military duty, must come forward and strike these men down. I cannot take part in such proceedings without asking myself if they be right. And ought I to coöperate in carrying them out?