[23] For occasional levies of volunteers from sixteenth century onwards, see Medley, D. J., _Const. Hist._, p. 472.
Such is the condition of things at the present time. The principle of compulsory military service, obligatory upon every able-bodied male between the ages of sixteen and sixty, is still the fundamental principle of English Law, both Common Law and Statute Law. It has been obscured by the pernicious voluntary principle, which, in the much-abused name of Liberty, has shifted a universal national duty upon the shoulders of the patriotic few. But it has never been revoked or repudiated.
It is not National Service, but the Voluntary System, that is un-English and unhistoric. The Territorial Army dates from 1908; the Volunteers from 1859; the Regular Army itself only from 1645. But for a millennium before the oldest of them the ancient defence of England was the Nation in Arms. When will it be so again?
[Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the _Morning Post_ of September 28th, 1915.]
The opponents of national service pursue two lines of argument, the one historical, the other theoretical. Along the line of history they try to show that compulsory military duty is alien from the English Constitution, and that the voluntary system is the good old system by means of which Great Britain has maintained her independence, achieved her glories, and founded her Empire. Along the line of political theory they contend that the demand for national service is contrary to the spirit of liberty, that freedom is an essential characteristic of the English genius, that Britons may be persuaded but not coerced, and so on.
In the preceding study I have shown the utter baselessness of the historical argument, pointed out that compulsory service was the very foundation of the Anglo-Saxon system of defence, and concluded that whereas "the Territorial Army dates from 1908, the Volunteers from 1859, the Regular Army itself only from 1645, for a millennium before the oldest of them the ancient defence of England was the Nation in Arms." I now turn to the theoretical argument, and propose to consider what is meant by the term "liberty," and ask whether the compulsion involved in national service is incompatible with liberty properly understood.