BEING JUDGE IN ONE'S OWN CAUSE.
T4 ORD KITCHENER was right in saying in the House of Lords on Monday that there was " considerable anxiety " about the question of conscientious objection to military service. There is " considerable anxiety," as we do not need to be told, among the conscientious objectors them- selves and their supporters ; there is also " considerable anxiety " (as perhaps the conscientious objectors and their supporters do need to be told) among people generally that this question should be settled justly after a reasonable inves- tigation, and not settled out of hand on the mere ipse cli.n.t of the objectors themselves. Too large a principle, affecting the whole relation of private rights to civic necessity, is at stake for us simply to say that a man who calls himself a con- scientious objector is necessarily to be regarded as a con- scientious objector. Yet this very calm assumption is almost universally made by the objectors and their friends. Strong advocates though we have been for many years of compulsory military service, we have always appealed for the due obser- vance of a conscience clause. We cannot therefore be charged with harbouring any desire that the State should drive a Juggernaut's car over the bodies of sincere objectors. In principle we fully admit their case. It is most important in a healthy democracy to keep alive true liberty of conscience ; a State that denies it is not itself free. We have always believed that at least in times of peace the number of genuine con- scientious objectors—men willing to endure the accusation of shirking, or the suspicion of being cowards, or the ridicule which pursues cranks—would be negligible. In war there are very potent temptations to a man to profess himself a conscientious objector, and in war, therefore, it is vitally necessary to make sure that a " conscientious objector " is really what he professes to be. We have often expressed the kind of objection which we should regard as valid as a " religious " objection. Men who have been born and bred to what may be called the Quaker view of war are obviously fit subjects for exemption from non-combatant service if they insist upon that view, though we are glad to know that hundreds of members of the Society of Friends have voluntarily taken their place in the fighting ranks. If we were pressed we would go further and admit that what we have loosely called a " religious " objection must logically be recognized as also valid among men who entertain what is analogous to a religious objection. Take the case, for example, of a man who, though not a believer in any religious creed, has shown by all his known practices and professions that he is opposed by profound intellectual conviction to the taking of human life in any form. We would hold such a man to be in a true sense a conscientious objector. But the fact is that whether a man states his objections from the avowedly " religious " point of view or from a standpoint analogous to it, somebody must decide whether they are genuine or not. It is here that we join issue with those who pretend that conscientious objections are being treated illegally, harshly, and con- temptuously. The objectors want to do what Burke considered should be a primary object of dread to any honest man—to be judges in their own cause. Hitherto the military tribunals have acted as judges. It is probable that they have made some mistakes, though we suspect that they have not made a great many, and in any case there is a Court of Appeal. Now Lord Kitchener promises that the objectors shall pass under the civil power. That is a perfect guarantee of such fair- ness as is procurable. The man who has become a conscientious objector for the duration of the war is not a conscientious objector, and the State should claim its right to compel him. His dishonesty should be exposed. He has no more right to demand exemption from his duty to the State than a man has to demand exemption from paying taxes. He does not respond to, nor has he cultivated, any " conscience " in the matter. Yet hundreds of " conscientious objectors " ridicu- lously set up a claim that such a man has only " to say the word " to be released from all his obligations. We have before us two appeals on behalf of the " conscien- tious objector " which both hopelessly expose themselves to the criticism that the conscientious objector is recognized as the rightful judge in his own Cause. The more important of the two is signed by Dr. John Clifford, Canon H. Scott Holland, Dr. Robert Horton, the Bishop of Lincoln, and others. A more wrong-headed production it is difficult to conceive. " We cannot even in such an hour of danger as this," it says, " see the rights of conscience ignored without immediate protest." The writers continue : " Many, indeed most of us, do not agree with the conscientious objector, but we hold that respect for conscience is of the very stuff of which freedom is made." The sentiment is unexceptionable. We cherish it ourselves. But where is the proof that genuine conscientious objectors have been illegally treated Z This is the charge- " the letter and the spirit of the Act have been repeatedly violated." But only an assertion is made by way of proof. The letter goes on :— " In spite of the terms of the Act itself, in spite of instructions issued from headquarters, some tribunals have denied their right to grant absolute exemption on conscientious grounds ; others have derided the claim of the objector to a conscience at all ; and yet others have refused to recognize a genuine conviction because it was based on moral rather than purely religious grounds. - In all these things the tribunals have actually defied the law which it was their duty to ad- minister in an impartial spirit.. The fact that some tribunals have sought to do this only throws into stronger relief the illegal action of others. In one case a magistrate even went so far as to state that he could not deal with any question of conscience' ; ho was there to ' stop this rot.' " Do the writers of the letter mean that these alleged illegalities have been approved by the Central Appeal Tribunal ? If they base their rhetoric merely on the fact that men who have set up to be judges in their own cause have found that the pre- tension was rejected, we can only describe the letter as intel- lectually a dishonest document, in which excellent sentiments are most falsely and mischievously applied.
Before we leave the subject of the conscientious objector we desire to draw our readers' attention to a letter signed " An Englishwoman " which appears in our correspondence columns. It deals with an aspect of the question which ought not to be passed over in silence.
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