Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/143

 On another occasion, in an equally pessimistic mood, I chose to quote, or perhaps rather to distort, Lord Wolseley, to the effect that the British must inevitably fall behind the French and Germans unless they would willingly submit to the "discipline of the conscription." Mr. Service very properly thought that no people would "willingly" submit to the conscription. But he gave me to understand that, in his opinion, if a foreign coast could be seen from Wilson's Promontory as plainly as the French coast from Dover, and if the Victorians knew that on those foreign shores there were a million armed men, the conscription would be cheerfully undergone without a day's delay. And not only with Mr. Service, but perhaps even stronger with Sir Graham Berry and other popular leaders of Australia, I have noticed the same disposition to trust in the general good sense of the people, or, in cases of emergency, where the masses seem misdirected, to speak out without equivocation what must be at the time the most unpalatable truths. This is, I know, not according to the preconceived ideas of many persons, and therefore in dealing with the subject I purposely record my own personal experiences.