CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1928, Page 6

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

In the welter of discussion on the subject of conscientious objectors it seems to me that two main points have not been given sufficient emphasis. In the first place it will be observed that while a Presbyterian objector is refused exemption and set upon by all the right thinkers and frothing Chauvinists in the country a member of the Society of Friends has no trouble in dodging the drill sergeant and is treated with honour and respect. The reason for this, I take it, is because the Society of Friends gives official support to * the scruples of its members, whereas the Presbyterian Church does not. Now this knocks the bottom out of the whole business. The objection is required by law to be a matter of conscience. By basing the decision on the ' official attitude of the religious body to which the objector belongs rather than on his individual convictions as derived from his own conscience, the grounds upon which legitimate objection may be made are rendered injunctive instead of conscientious. Apparently the law assumes that a religious body as a whole can have a conscience, which is sublime The second point is in regard to girls. If, as we are constantly being told by various self-constituted authorities in the correspond ence columns of the Press, every young man should be prepared to render some service to the State, why should this not apply also to the young women? As long as we are concerned purely with military service we cannot expects girls to serve, not because they do not owe a duty to their country, but because this particular duty is not one in which they can be expected to participate. But when it ia suggested that the male objectors should perform alternative service, such as hospital weak, then the justification for exempting girla becomes null and void. It boils down to this: If in the finish the young men are set to some alternative non-military work the authorities must in consistency require the young woman* hood of the nation to undergo training also in some such field as that of Bed Cross work. AJUXF.