CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 180, 1 August 1944, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

MILITARY DEFAULTERS 4 4J (To the Editor) The R.S.A. have put forward a list of "facts" in support of their opposition to the release of military defaulters. Space does not permit of my dealing with them all; as to (b), (c) and (e), I will merely say that they are irrelevant, (a) alleges that genuine conscientious objectors had their appeals allowed by the armed forces appeal boards, and are not m detention camps. This statement, though presumably made in good faith, cannot be believed, at all events as far as Auckland is concerned, by any impartial person who has read the newspaper reports of the proceedings here a year or two ago. The chairman and some members of the boards apparently acted on the assumption that no one could be a genuine conscientious objector unless he could convince them that he was right in being so, which, of course, no one could; and thus they almost entirely nullified the intention of the regulations that they had been appointed to administer. Under (d), which is a statement not of fact but of opinion, it is alleged that it would be unjust to the soldiers if these men were now released. The R.S.A. do not say why, but probably they hold with Mr. Postlewaite that these men_ would be given good jobs, and soldiers returning afterwards would have to walk the streets looking for work. The common notion that everyone who gets a job must be doing someone else out of one is a fallacy. Everyone who engages in productive industry at a reasonable remuneration is thereby making more work for other people. M. ALDIS.j.,,