OBJECTORS IN CAMPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 177, 28 July 1944, Page 4

OBJECTORS IN CAMPS

THERE are some 6500 New Zealand men detained in camps for an indefinite period. These are in Germany. There are some 700 others, also detained in camps for an indefinite period. These are in New Zealand. The first were taken prisoner when fighting for the Allied cause. The second refused to fight for the Allied cause. Before the first can be released other New Zealanders, some of whom have been fighting four years and more, must go on fighting, for an indefinite period, and some must give their lives. Yet it is suggested to Parliament, in a petition, that it is unjust that the period of detention of the small group of defaulters should be indefinite, and the proposal is made that they should be released "when they have been detained for two years. To the pungent comment on this proposal made by the R.S.A. little need be added, except that it is questionable whether, as the association contends, there are no genuine conscientious objectors in .the detention camps. To put forward that contention is surely to flatter the capacity for objective judgment of some of the appeal boards. Parliament might well ask for precise information as to the particular circumstances in which each of . the men was committed, with a view to satisfying itself whether there are among them men who would not have been committed if they had come before a different appeal board. The other ground of the petition is that detention is futile and unconstructive. The futility charge would lie if the community, having first invited and then compelled men to military service, .treated lightly the persistent refusal of a minority to share a common burden of citizenship. That detention camps are expensive," and that the expense is regrettable, is true. It is true also of prisons, but its truth would not be accepted as a good reason for releasing their inmates. It is a reason for taking care that none of the

expense is unnecessary.