Justifications for Conscription by Rev. Hugh Pedley

There are some of the main reasons for Conscription. What is there against it? So far as I can see, the main argument, the central argument, against it is that it is contrary to the spirit of free institutions, a violation of the principles of democracy. It is because there is in it the element of compulsion. But democracy and compulsion are not incompatible. There is compulsion within the bounds of freedom. Take the freest country in the world and it is not maintained by voluntary contributions. Taxes are demanded and refusal to pay is a legal offence. The difference between a free country and a tyranny, is not that the former is free from taxation, but that it is taxed by its own representatives, while the other case the taxes are imposed by an authority that the people had not appointed, The same difference exists in the matter of Conscription. As administered by Great Britain, France or the United States, it is on a different footing altogether from that which it was in Germany. In one case the call comes from rulers that are directly responsible to the people. In the other from a government that acts independently of the citizens. Canada is in the former class. Our Conscription is not feudal, but democratic.

The Gazette, May 28, 1917