The National Being by George William Russell

But there are other methods of devotion to the national being possible to us through collective action, and I was moved to imagine one, having once received a letter from a bloodthirsty correspondent -- one of that rather numerous class whose minds are always loaded with ball cartridge, whose fingers are always on the trigger, and who are always calling on the authorities not to hesitate to shoot. He wrote to me during a railway strike, advocating military conscription in order that railway men who went out on strike could be called up by the military authorities, as the French railway strikers were, and who were subject to martial law if they disobeyed.

I do not think with those who believe the venerable remedy of blood-letting is the best cure for social maladies; and I would have thought no more about that stern disciplinarian, but my mind went playing about the idea of conscription, and there came to me some thoughts which I wish to put on record in the hope that our people in some future, when the social order will create public spirit and the passion for the State more plentifully than it does today, may recur to the idea and apply it. Nearly every State in the world demands from youth a couple of years' service in the army.