In a long debate lasting all night, critical speeches were
made by Mr. Redmond and Sir Edward Carson. We prefer, however, to dwell upon the speech of Mr. Stanton, the victor of Merthyr. He expressed the belief that Lord Derby's scheme was less satisfactory than Mr. Asquith had admitted, and he boldly stated that his victory had shown what the country was perfectly willing to accept. We entirely agree with Mr. Stanton's attitude. The resistance to compulsion, strange as it may seem, does not come from the men who would be compelled, but from a sort of academic opinion kept going by Radical Members of Parliament and newspaper editors. With them, too, it is due rather to habit than to any reasoned conviction. They have talked so long and so loudly of what they call conscription and militarism that they cannot, even at such a crisis as the present, stop repeating their shibboleths. When in a constituency like Merthyr a man fighting alone against the powerful organizations of the Labour and the Radical Parties wins on the compulsory service ticket by a majority of over four thousand, it appears to us idle to quote the opinion of the editor of the Nation as evidence that the country would never stand compulsion.
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