fficiency became and remained a
byword.[23] The militia continued ingloriously, mainly as a nursery for
the regular army.

Finally, in 1908, Mr. (now Lord) Haldane absorbed both volunteers and
militia into the new Territorial and Reserve Forces, the militia
becoming a Special Reserve.[24] It is much to be regretted that the Act
of 1908 did not expressly reaffirm the continued validity of the
compulsory principle of service which from the earliest times had been
the basis of the militia. But, though it did not expressly reaffirm it,
it left it absolutely unimpaired and intact. Said Mr. Haldane himself in
the House of Commons on April 13th, 1910: "The Militia Ballot Acts and
the Acts relating to the local militia are still unrepealed, and could
be enforced if necessary."

FOOTNOTES:

[20] 31 Geo. II, c. 26.

[21] Cobbett. _Parliamentary Debates_, vol. vii, p. 818.

[22] 15-16 Vict. c. 50. Sec.18.

[23] For occasional levies of volunteers from sixteenth century onwards,
see Medley, D. J., _Const. Hist._, p. 472.

[24] 7 Ed. VII, c. 9.

VI. CONCLUSION

Such is the condition of things at the present time. The principle of
compulsory military service, obligatory upon every able-bodied male
between the ages of sixteen and sixty, is still the fundamental
principle of English Law, both Common Law and Statute Law. It has been
obscured by the pernicious voluntary principle, which, in 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 But it has never been revoked or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?

II

COMPULSORY SERVICE AND LIBERTY

[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