We do not for a moment believe that any large
body of Eng- lishmen will take refuge behind this clause, and support by perjury their desire to escape the duty of serving their country in arms. The conscientious objector will have to prove to a tribunal well able to collect evidence as to facts that his con- scientious objections are real and not assumed for the period of the war. It will, of course, not be enough for him, as some people seem to imagine, to say casually and over his shoulder, in a "season-ticket" voice, that he is a conscientious objector. The man who makes pretence to such a point of view when it is not really his must, if he succeeds, prove himself a 'far brayer man than most combatants. As a matter of fact, however, the men who have not come forward are shirkers not so much from cowardice as from laziness, shyness, indifference, and most of all from inability to resist the passionate pleas, or even orders, from their families not to leave them and join the colours. To such men, and they arc a great majority, compulsion will be a most welcome deliverance from an intolerable situation. After some very unconvincing remarks on Mr. Samuel's view of the figures, Sir John Simon repeated the "thin-end-of-the-wedge" argument which he used in the first-reading debate, and which once again we can only answer by a reference to "Noodle's Oration."
