" NOLENS VOLENS !" "WHO'S COMPELLED ? " [To THE
EDITOR OP THE “SPECTATOR...] SIR,—So far none of your correspondents on the National Service question has tackled the master-fallacy of the voluntaryists, who actually think they make a point when they brandish in our faces the undoubted ethical principle that the willing work better than the unwilling. But "clear your minds of cant !" I believe that under our so-called voluntary system about ninety per cent. of the small fraction of the population who are " willing" to serve in the Army enlist under the strict compulsion of unemployment, if not actual hunger. Is this free will ? And when a whole free people—as for instance in Switzerland—voluntarily agree to a law pledging everyone to do his part in the national defence, is this "coercion" ? And then the corollary of the volun- taryist argument, which they are naturally rather shy of drawing, though it is essential to their case, namely, that the patriotism of the Swiss nation is inferior to our own, is it not to all who know Switzerland too absurd for words ? Surely the upholders of the so-called voluntary system are sad
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