There can be no doubt that in this country, as in America, the term "liberty" enjoys much popularity. Sir John Seeley has remarked that just as "its unlimited generality" makes it "delightful to poets," so its harmonious sound is so grateful to the ears of the public at large that "if a political speech did not frequently mention liberty," no one would "know what to make of it or where to applaud."[25] Matthew Arnold goes so far as to speak of "our worship of freedom," and to depict liberty as the object of a fanatical semi-religious adoration.[26] But as a rule where an Englishman adores he does not define, and if one asks the common devotee of liberty what he understands by the abstraction before which he prostrates himself, one generally requires but a small portion of the dialectic subtlety of Socrates to involve him in a hopeless tangle of contradictions. He can no more define liberty than he can locate his soul. Mr. D. G. Ritchie truly says: "Many crimes have been done, and a still greater amount of nonsense talked in the name of liberty."[27] Seeley, with as much justice as pungency, asserts that some writers "teach us to call by the name of liberty whatever in politics we want," and so lead us to disguise our selfishness and cowardice in the stolen garb of moral principle.[28] At any rate, there is urgent need that before we either support or oppose any practical political measure in the name of liberty, we should clear our minds of confusion, and should reach an understanding of what precisely we mean by this vast and vague expression. It will be found, I think, upon examination, that the term "liberty," as employed in the sphere of politics, has four distinct connotations. I hope to show that in no one of these four senses is liberty incompatible with the compulsory element implicit in the principle of national service.
[25] Seeley. _Introduction to Political Science_, pp. 103-4.
[26] Arnold. _Culture and Anarchy_, chap. ii.
III. LIBERTY AS FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN CONTROL
"A free nation," says Sir William Temple, "is that which has never been conquered, or thereby entered into any condition of subjection."[29] In this sense of freedom from foreign domination liberty is the immemorial boast of Britons. They never have been, or will be, slaves. They are, and they are determined to remain--so they proudly sing--free as the waves that wash their shores, free as the winds that sweep their hills. They are resolved that no alien tyrant shall plant his foot upon their necks. As in the Middle Ages they repudiated the claim of German Emperors and Ultramontane Popes to exercise political sovereignty over them; as in more modern times they resisted conquest by the Spaniard Philip and the Corsican Napoleon; even so would they resist to the extreme limit of endurance any attempt to-day to reduce them to servitude. The proposition that freedom in this sense of national independence is consistent with compulsory military service needs no demonstration at all. So far from there being any incompatibility between the two, it is probable that only by means of a manhood universally trained to the use of arms can the freedom of Britain and the integrity of the Empire be ultimately maintained. We shall almost certainly have to choose, not between national service and liberty, but between national service and destruction.