C.O. CAMPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 4

C.O. CAMPS

You reported the enthusiastic comments of an "Auckland Business Man" concerning the assistance given to local farmers by conscientious objectors from a detention camp in the Galatea area during recent severe floods. This reference raises the question as to whether the best possible use is being made of the services of these men. At present there are about 700 able-bodied C.O.'s held in detention camps. Though these inmates are eager to serve the community in the occupations for which they are trained, they are forced to spend their time behind barbed wire, engaged in work which is, to all intents and purposes, valueless. According to the latest National Service Department report, this policy is costing the country about £6 8/ per man, per week, at a time when the shortage of manpower is a major national problem. That many of these men have now been held in detention for well over two years would suggest that, rightly or wrongly, they intend to "stick it out." Would it not be a more reasonable policy to release these men now to jobs for which they are fitted and trained and which are approved by manpower officers. Lest, like so many others to-day, they should make a profit from the war situation, it might be stipulated that they be not allowed to earn more than C.O.'s whose appeals have been allowed, viz, the rate of pay of a private in the Army. After all, the responsible positions now held by some of the C.O.'s of the last war would suggest that men of this particular outlook might be of distinct value in civilian, life. C. R. HOWELL.